The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode with London Stock Exchange Group's Chris Mayo has just been released. Listen here.
Go for it! Always a good idea to short a gold miner in a gold bull market.
I have some sympathy for the last two bullet points in the article. Land and buildings that are clearly abandoned in an area ripe for regeneration are irritating to say the least.
This seems like an attempt at compromise.
Early signs of 'full on' bull mode. I understand that Mastermines suggested a spot quote of over $10/lb for V2O5 in China at the end of last week. As Asianmetal.com seems to lag a bit I wouldn't be surprised to see similar figures to this all week.
Supdawg,
I remember having a similar chat with someone on a different board about the scale of these things. My argument at the time about viewing scale as an issue was largely around 'have you seen the size of a power station' ? Now we can add the new wind turbines which are almost the height of the Eiffel Tower! We are talking about utility usage here and the scale is certainly secondary to whether it is fit for purpose and the financial aspects of the system.
There is more than enough Vanadium in the world but the current size of the industry is insufficient to supply what the anticipated demand is. Here we have a catch 22 - the world needs more Vanadium supply to fulfill potential demand but in order to get it new projects need to be developed and these will only be able to raise the necessary capital if the Vanadium price rises sufficiently to make enough of them economically viable.
In my 'Goldilocks' scenario the Vanadium price reaches a level that is sufficient to progress new projects whilst not being so high as to deter VRFB production. As to what that level is, I am not sure. But I suspect that it won't be a smooth trip to achieve the appropriate level - there is likely to be much volatility for the next few years.
That's a very significant jump if true and Mastermines' tweets tend to be ahead of the price seen through Asianmetals.com /Vanadiumprice.com. At the very least it suggests that we will see rises on these two for the next few days. Very interesting indeed. However, let's hope that we avoid the boom or bust situation that we saw last year, although a little bit of boom would be appreciated.
Could Bushveld be the cornerstone investor? This would certainly be consistent with information in the public domain (link to Avalon, statement previously of taking stakes in VRFB companies) but it would be stretching the company to do so at this time. Interesting thought though.
It is a good move by both companies, particularly RedT. Let's face it, the alternative for RedT shareholders was probably placing after placing and a steadily decaying share price. Hopefully the combined entity with the strategic investors support will be stronger as a result and move earlier to cash generation.
I think it likely that China will lead the way again on this and ammonium metavanadate tends to lead the way in China from my observations. Which makes me reasonably optimistic that we will see higher prices across the board at some point soon. Price differences such as we are seeing cannot be maintained and I saw a report recently from Fastmarkets suggesting, unsurprisingly, that European Vanadium suppliers are now looking to export to China.
I confess that this is outside of the sort of company proposition that I tend to follow. However, from my, admittedly limited, research on the subject, I believe that this kind of operation is much more valuable than a coal mine on its own. It does, of course, also carry a higher development cost but I would expect that to be provided by a third party entity either through a JV or outright sale at some point.
It is true that the Vanchem acquisition RNS states that:
"Upon receipt of the mining right, Mokopane will be a primary source of feedstock to the Vanchem Business "
and firmly links the development of Mokopane and the Vanchem acquisition. However, the RNS also states:
"The Company retains the optionality to supply magnetite concentrates from Vametco to the Vanchem Business."
which, to me, implies that the opportunity exists to supply Vanchem from Vametco should the time frame for Mokopane development not be consistent with the needs of Vanchem development.
I don't think that anyone is under any illusions about the geopolitical situation. Or at least they certainly shouldn't be. Apart from that it ticks pretty much all of the boxes and if the geopolitical situation improves then this should see a very strong rise. It's a big 'IF' currently though.
Good call Lazygun! Not too dubious then......
Let me have a wild guess - an associate of the BoD's by any chance?
History doesn't suggest that this is the case. Both Labro and AV have bought during periods where resource upgrades and the Kapan takeover were being arranged so I would expect these types of activities to continue. The share price performance remains positive during Labro's buying periods but this is dependent upon existing shareholders. I find it fascinating that some current shareholders, as indicated by the transactions, see the announcement of a significant buy programme as a sell signal!
Some didn't survive whilst all cut back hard (to their ultimate benefit). The field became a lot thinner with some large entities and then the best of the rest. The higher cost entities either stripped back or put their operations on care and maintenance. However, consider that costs were also a lot lower so the cash costs were a lot lower and it is the cash costs that determine the short term survival as in a tight market exploration and development costs are cut completely.
Gold is always famine or feast.
I don't think that anyone really knows but if Glencore wanted to buy up Largo (or force them to negotiate another off take, which seems highly unlikely) on the cheap by forcing the Vanadium price lower then they certainly have the nous, financial firepower, market position (to some extent) and lack of scruples to do it.
There was a different feel today. We got a seller(s) hitting the market with lots of £10k and £20k interspersed with the old familiar 30k/50k trades. The latter were presumably taking advantage of the pressure brought by the former.