Member Info for extrader

.." the odds are more against than in favour. For a pretty obvious bunch of reasons - which I doubt XT and MM will publicly admit to.."

Can't speak for MM.

As to the odds, here are a few of the reasons 'against' that I've raised in the last few weeks :

- power source/availability;

- local corruption / land access issues;

- Big Den family corruption and political uncertainty over next Presidential election;

- macro environment;

- durability of the 'green steel' thesis.

I've certainly raised plenty of other concerns over a longer period.

In the spirit of honest enquiry and to test your intellectual integrity, 'I've shown you mine, you show me yours' : pls come up with just 4 arguments FOR that you've made since favouring us with your presence...or do so now.

I won't hold my breath.

.."I don't know what I am talking about ?!.."

Your missives are a 'content-free' zone : pls point me to a single (accurate) fact or piece of information you have ever contributed (operative word) to the ZIOC DISCUSSION board.

FOOTnote- for fans of the beautiful game :

Ausenco's new owners also own Chelsea Football club; co-own Girona FC; and had a role in the launch of InterMiami (Messi, Beckham et al).

.."Suggest you are better than quips and attempted put downs..."

Yes, much better : my 'put downs' - actually, factual rebuttals - seem to be (present company) not only 'attempted' but so far - consistently - unanswered/unanswerable.

'Yes, but...'

And here's some recent work being done on dry comminution...above my pay grade, unfortunately.

https://ausenco.com/assets/documents/2024-12-01-Opportunities-and-challenges-in-dry-comminution.pdf

May be relevant, if they own PSEI...or have a J/V with PSEI (HK)...

.."Ausenco is owned by Eldridge, Brightstar Capital Partners, and Claure Group. These entities acquired a majority stake in the company from Resource Capital Fund VI L.P. and other co-investors in September 2023."

https://www.mining.com/ausenco-acquired-by-eldridge-brightstar-capital-and-claure-group-for-578-million/

while this article gives more detail about the 3 x acquirers themselves :

https://brightstarcp.com/brightstar-announces-definitive-agreement-to-acquire-ausenco/

Shared themes seem to be 'energy transition' and 'helping companies deliver their full potential'.

All good stuff, AFAICS.

GLA

May be relevant, if they own PSEI...or have a J/V with PSEI (HK)...

.."Ausenco is owned by Eldridge, Brightstar Capital Partners, and Claure Group. These entities acquired a majority stake in the company from Resource Capital Fund VI L.P. and other co-investors in September 2023."

https://www.mining.com/ausenco-acquired-by-eldridge-brightstar-capital-and-claure-group-for-578-million/

while this article gives more detail about the 3 x acquirers themselves :

https://brightstarcp.com/brightstar-announces-definitive-agreement-to-acquire-ausenco/

Shared themes seem to be 'energy transition' and 'helping companies deliver their full potential'.

All good stuff, AFAICS.

GLA

Good exchanges on t'other board re DRI, beneficiation , Ausenco/PSEI and possible links to Zanaga Project.

In the course of rooting around, I found this link https://psei.co/services-copy-3/

includes under Projects

.."Zanaga Iron Ore Project , Congo SA – Study and DEFINITIVE Feasibility Study for MDP.."

I suggest that MDP is a mistake for MPD Congo, owner of the Zanaga Concession.

Apols if someone else has posted this already and its significance was overlooked at the time.

ATB

Hi MM,

Pls ask grok again, I'd be interested to see if it's picked up my 14:28 post and updated its opinion re 'no direct connection' between ZIOC and PSEI...!

Cheers.

.....I suppose ZIOC COULD be using stock images, but consider that unlikely.

Finally, this link https://psei.co/services-copy-3/

includes under Projects

.."Zanaga Iron Ore Project , Congo SA – Study and Definitive Feasibility Study for MDP.."

I suggest that MDP is a mistake for MPD Congo, owner of the Zanaga Concession.

AFAICS

We should find out soon enough - insha'allah.

ATB

Hi MM,

Some interesting- if duplicated- comments re Ausenco/PSEI, thanks!.

I'd throw into the mix (pun intended), these notes.

See especially the concluding sentence.

(1) the ZIOC March 25 presentation (p 17) shows a pelletising plant, which reverse image searches to Samarco, a BHP/Vale J/V.

Samarco was site of a major 2015 tailings disaster, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_dam_disaster,

hence perhaps sensitivities re /preference for dry tailings...

- here's a wayback (16 years old!) link to pelletising processes, to help visualisation

https://www.saimm.co.za/Conferences/Pelletising2008/03%20Recent%20Developments%20In%20Agglomeration%20Technologies%20For%20Iron%20OresB.pdf

- Samarco complex includes a number of slurry pipelines, the longest of which (400Km) is attributed to Ausenco, in 2011

https://www.mining.com/ausenco-awarded-an-engineering-contract-for-samarco%E2%80%99s-third-iron-ore-pipeline/

(2) the ZIOC November 2023 presentation (p 7) has 4 x pictures, 2 that are exact matches , the top left appears on PSEI's website under

http://www.psei.com.cn/news/225.html

and reports (Jan 2025, speech from 2024) :

.."Pace (sic)(Chief Engineer .. Delivers a Conference Lecture

Published：2025-01-21

On 27th March 2024...

Speech content around the development and application of new technology of Pace ore dressing - roller mill dry separation technology is introduced.

The main features of the new beneficiation process: 1) 50% saving of investment in grinding and beneficiation; 2) 40% reduction of production cost; 3) 90% water saving; 4) no need to build wet tailings storage, no tailings storage risk problem.

The traditional magnetite ore dressing process is ‘three sections of a closed-circuit crushing + two sections of ball milling, wet magnetic separation’. The new technology process is: ‘three sections of a closed-circuit crushing + dry pre-selection tailing + high-pressure roller mill + powder dry classification and dry sorting’. Through a series of investigation, research, semi-industrial tests, large-scale industrial production verification work, indicating that the dry beneficiation technology is feasible, reliable equipment, energy saving and emission reduction effect is remarkable for iron ore beneficiation to bring breakthrough technological progress. Chengde Tianbao Mining Group has brought significant economic benefits to the enterprise after applying the new technology to technological transformation of its mines.

The dry grinding and dry beneficiation technology has won many national patents for its unique innovation and significant economic and social benefits.

PACE(sic) dry beneficiation technology has been practically applied in many projects, with remarkable effect and wide market space.

The large-scale dry beneficiation projects in China are all designed by PACE, and some of the projects are provided by PACE (sic) with EPC or EPCM services...."

I suppose ZIOC COU

.."The project is not yet sufficiently advanced for most institutional investors to buy in here(1).Pre-feasibility, bankable feasibility, and a load of other studies (2) and a clear pathway to commencement of cash flows not too far our on the time horizon before most of the institutions would be allowed to invest under their fund mandates.

PE and VC and private markets - now that is a different group of money bags(3).

(1) Yet Blackstone and Fidelity were major backers at the IPO more than a decade ago.

They must have missed your memo.

(2) You've missed the observation that some of Marty Knauth's counterparts have described the info shared as being to bankable feasibility level.

(3). What do you think Heeney Capital and Regatta are?

'Yes, but...'

Hi MM,

I stand corrected on the 175/180 issue...and your (now obvious ) point that the Anglo price is incremental, not up-front.

And chapeau re the alternative tech, which sounds compelling.

Do we /you know the EPC contractor , if not PSEI (which figured in the reverse images exercise) ?

ATB

Fascinating stuff re Elphick, an angle I was completely unaware of, I'd only gathered the goss that he was ousted by Nicky Oppenheimer ('green-eyed monster issues') precisely because he was HFO's 'blue-eyed ' boy.

He may well know this man - Jean Yves Ollivier - who was the eminence grise behind the ending of apartheid and used a young Den as interlocutor . His wiki entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Yves_Ollivier

reads in part :

.."In December 1988, Jean-Yves Ollivier helped facilitate the Brazzaville Protocol, which brought an end to the South African Border War and provided for the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola and South African troops from Namibia, respectively. Ollivier helped set up the negotiations in the Republic of the Congo and persuaded Congolese president Denis Sassou Nguesso to mediate.

In 1990, he organized new South African president Frederik de Klerk's visit to France. It was the first visit by a South African president in France in 40 years. French President François Mitterrand personally received de Klerk.

In 2002, Jean-Yves Ollivier engaged in talks in Sun City. These talks eventually led to a power sharing agreement in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between President Joseph Kabila and several rebel leaders, including Jean-Pierre Bemba, the head of the Mouvement pour la Liberation du Congo (MLC).

Jean-Yves Ollivier is the President of the Brazzaville Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND NATURE CONSERVATION. The Foundation acts as an HONEST BROKER between warring parties, in the strictest confidence and on the basis of a frank and direct dialogue..."

The film - Plot for peace' - about Ollivier's activities is worth a viewing too, IMO.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/the-mysterious-monsieur-jacques-behind-the-scenes-of-apartheid-french-businessman-jeanyves-ollivier-was-a-shadowy-broker-for-peace-9190925.html

To mis-appropriate a saying : 'Something for the weekend, sir ;->'

ATB

He's the local agent for Rosatom, on the hydro side, and was supposedly behind the scenes in the African group peace initiative Russia-Ukraine that Big Den famously ducked to go off to sign the AD Ports deal.

Hi again MM

.."in the latest company presentation, ZIOC project $180/t for Zanaga product. That is either a massive ramp for iron ore prices, unlikely for the so far conservative company, or a veiled hint that they can go from beneficiating DRI to cold pellet production ASAP. I have a strong hunch it is the 'or'..."

It actually projects $ 175...and helpfully (p 15) tells us that this figure is .."Anglo American illustrative DRI price premium forecasts sourced from Anglo American interim results presentation published on 15 (sic, actually 25) July 2024"

See https://www.angloamerican.com/~/media/Files/A/Anglo-American-Group-v9/PLC/investors/results-centre-and-presentations/anglo-american-hy24-results-presentation-1.pdf

p.56 shows the basis for Anglo's forecast price premium :

.."Significantly higher premiums for DRI-grade iron ore

Premium per 1% Fe above 65%, $/dmt

Today $5

Future potential $20

Essential for higher value green steel.

Source: Anglo American analysis; Platts; Fastmarkets; Primetals; Gyllenram.

At 3% premium (68% vs 65%), that's $ 60 vs $ 15, explaining the 'up to $ 45' upside.

$ 15 is the currently observable premium for 68% Fe DR grade, the rest is 'hope value' that is predicated on rising demand for 'green steel'.

The same page shows various projections for overall demand 2023 - 2040, blast furnace grade falling slightly and DRI grade showing a consensus 5% CAGR.

Conclusion : the >US$ 6Bn uplift is a 'best case' scenario for the DR value enhancement workstream, and assumes that the 'green steel' thesis plays out."

Here's hoping!...and I look forward to your 'reveal' of the alternative proprietary Chinese tech!

ATB

Hi MM,

Thanks for getting back to me on the power issue.

As it happens, the Congo Energy conference has just closed.

Apart from a 56 Mw solar / biomass project (Tinda), and a small 5Mw solar project there's indeed encouraging talk of a mooted gas-to-power project.

https://africanreview.com/energy/congo-targets-1-500mw-power-capacity-by-2030

...almost as an afterthought (after expatiating on the country's hydropower potential, but without naming any names), we read

.."Additionally, the government is incorporating natural gas into its energy mix, with Chinese firm Wing Wah developing a 400MW gas-fired power project, 200MW of which will be integrated into the national grid..."

Articles from last year talk about 2Mw to 22Mw from otherwise stranded or previously flared gas, but that's about it.

Ho hum

Cheers

Hi MM,

Grateful if you'd put grok to work on this :

Shard's broker note (p 9), describes the Project needs thusly:

"Power

Zanaga’s Stage 1 power requirement is approximately 130MW at the mine site and 15MW at the port site this then increases for Stage 2 with approximately 340MW required at the mine site and 20MW at the port. [ie 145 MW > 360 MW].

RoC’s existing energy network will NOT BE SUFFICIENT [my caps] to meet the needs of the mine and thus will require significant NEW infrastructure for energy generation and transmission..."

It then refers to the CEC MoU (= a fairly low-level commitment) and somewhat bizarrely makes the claim that .."ZIOC’s partnership [ which an MoU isn't] with a private power provider demonstrates the world class nature of the project [it doesn't]".

Huh?

We separately gather from ZIOC's Nov 23 website presentation (p 14) that the port power requirements are envisaged as being provided by the port operator ('Third party port

“marine” construction, and third party power supply ').

That appears to be Arise's responsibility now ...but only reduces the Project's requirements by 20 MW, to 340 MW.

And that's before whatever extra juice a Pelletising Plant in the SEZ will need....

For attendees (and others) : what else - if anything - was said about how this shortfall is to be covered ?

The Chinese Project-specific dams ( CMEC) aren't in the presentation.

Was there any mention/update re Sounda, the FOCAC-'promised' 600-800 MW mega-dam supposed to start right now, in March 2025?

Summat doesn't add up, so far.

To coin a phrase "I'd sleep sounder with Sounda...;-> "

TIA and GLA

Hi Jiving,

Note the BSL/Japanese connection...

It's likely that the "key metallurgical testwork initiatives with the potential to provide significant upside value" RNS'd is the proprietary technology for cold bonding pelletisation being developed by Binding Solutions Limited , hTTps://www.bindingsolutions.uk/which

.."enables reductions of up to 80% in energy usage and 70% in CO2 emissions by replacing sinter and induration process that account for approximately 15% of the sector’s emissions...a cold agglomeration technology [which] can also cut capital requirements by 86% and reduce process complexity delivering commercial benefits to iron ore miners, PELLET producers and steel makers....".

If you dig through hTTps://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10394084 you'll see that

-Tony Trahar, ex CEO at Anglo and an adviser/investor in Greymont was interim Director at BSL during a 2018 corporate restructuring, I believe as a 'safe pair of hands'. He still has a modest shareholding in the company;

-Other investors in BSL include MinRes (17.55%); Champion Iron /Glencore (8.53%); MITSUI (4.3%) and Cotec Holdings (3.1%). Cotec is a Julian Treger vehicle, and Treger has 'significant influence or control', despite this modest shareholding;

-Unrepresented on BSL's Board is its largest (26.36%) shareholder, Bermuda-based Concord Atlantic Limited, I assume there is a connection that accounts for Treger's disproportionate say.

-Also unrepresented AFAICS is PSEI (Hong Kong) Ltd, a 10% shareholder.

ZIOC has never AFAIAA publicly stated who the Project's 'Chinese' iron ore technical expert engineering firm ("Chinese EPC Partner") is, but (RNS 29 Sept 2023) .." it possesses specific, specialised, design and construction expertise in SLURRY pipeline projects as well as iron ore PELLET feed concentrate projects similar to that proposed at the Zanaga Project."

From reverse image searches of ZIOC presentations, I'm fairly sure that the EPC partner is PSEI/Ausenco, especially useful given that - for Anglo's Minas-Rio project in Brazil- Ausenco (with PSEI's expertise) designed and engineered the world's longest iron concentrate slurry pipeline, spanning 529 kilometers. This pipeline transports iron ore from Minas Gerais to the port of Açu in Rio de Janeiro.

This was mentioned by Anglo's /Greymont's Mark Cutifani, when he said of Zanaga's Project (RNS 3 March 2025).." Its low operating costs and integrated slurry pipeline logistics mirror the efficiency and infrastructure-driven advantages seen in assets like Anglo American's Minas Rio, which successfully scaled into a leading global supplier."

There's certainly a very strong 'South African' flavour to the 'new' ZIOC -bringing Mick Davis (ex Xstrata) back in, as Glencore (Ivan Glasenberg/Gary Nagle) departs the scene and old Anglo hands (Cutifani, Elphick and Trahar + (maybe) Plattenberg neighbour Treger) work together again.

Interesting, if true.

ATB

Hi MM,

It's likely that the "key metallurgical testwork initiatives with the potential to provide significant upside value" RNS'd is the proprietary technology for cold bonding pelletisation being developed by Binding Solutions Limited , hTTps://www.bindingsolutions.uk/which

.."enables reductions of up to 80% in energy usage and 70% in CO2 emissions by replacing sinter and induration process that account for approximately 15% of the sector’s emissions...a cold agglomeration technology [which] can also cut capital requirements by 86% and reduce process complexity delivering commercial benefits to iron ore miners, PELLET producers and steel makers....".

If you dig through hTTps://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10394084 you'll see that

-Tony Trahar, ex CEO at Anglo and an adviser/investor in Greymont was interim Director at BSL during a 2018 corporate restructuring, I believe as a 'safe pair of hands'. He still has a modest shareholding in the company;

-Other investors in BSL include MinRes (17.55%); Champion Iron /Glencore (8.53%); Mitsui (4.3%) and Cotec Holdings (3.1%). Cotec is a Julian Treger vehicle, and Treger has 'significant influence or control', despite this modest shareholding;

-Unrepresented on BSL's Board is its largest (26.36%) shareholder, Bermuda-based Concord Atlantic Limited, I assume there is a connection that accounts for Treger's disproportionate say.

-Also unrepresented AFAICS is PSEI (Hong Kong) Ltd, a 10% shareholder.

ZIOC has never AFAIAA publicly stated who the Project's 'Chinese' iron ore technical expert engineering firm ("Chinese EPC Partner") is, but (RNS 29 Sept 2023) .." it possesses specific, specialised, design and construction expertise in SLURRY pipeline projects as well as iron ore PELLET feed concentrate projects similar to that proposed at the Zanaga Project."

From reverse image searches of ZIOC presentations, I'm fairly sure that the EPC partner is PSEI/Ausenco, especially useful given that - for Anglo's Minas-Rio project in Brazil- Ausenco (with PSEI's expertise) designed and engineered the world's longest iron concentrate slurry pipeline, spanning 529 kilometers. This pipeline transports iron ore from Minas Gerais to the port of Açu in Rio de Janeiro.

This was mentioned by Anglo's /Greymont's Mark Cutifani, when he said of Zanaga's Project (RNS 3 March 2025).." Its low operating costs and integrated slurry pipeline logistics mirror the efficiency and infrastructure-driven advantages seen in assets like Anglo American's Minas Rio, which successfully scaled into a leading global supplier."

There's certainly a very strong 'South African' flavour to the 'new' ZIOC -bringing Mick Davis (ex Xstrata) back in, as Glencore (Ivan Glasenberg/Gary Nagle) departs the scene and old Anglo hands (Cutifani, Elphick and Trahar + (maybe) Plattenberg neighbour Treger) work together again.

Interesting, if true.

HTH and ATB

Thanks, Jiving.

I was wondering where Proactive got it's quoted numbers from.

It rather looks as though they were using annual EBITDA numbers for NPV....

Oops!

GLA