Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Botswana Diamonds are a good alternative if you can’t bring yourself to trust AP but still want to potentially recoup losses with news on the Marange diamonds. Although it doesn’t look like AP has come back from zimbabwe with a signed contract and I can only assume that the relationship with BOD is still healthy. In any case BOD has Thorny River which will be bulk sampling and generating revenue in Q2 from actual diamonds, plus plenty of other diamond projects in the pipeline. It sucks to take a huge loss but equally if Vast are going to be selling assets to pay their creditors soon then it makes sense to get out at these levels as I don’t think this is priced in. I personally think this will have to be done before any financing agreements due to the security SSGI holds. That’s my logic anyway and it helps me to sleep well at night
Fool I will save you the trouble, just repeat the following, remembering to never acknowledge any serious problems with the company and repeat:
- AP is the best CEO
- Diamonds soon $$$$$$
- Off-take Finance and Cornerstone investor will save our bacon
Castaway if you wait a little longer then Vast will hand over it's only profitable producing asset to it's creditors. I suspect the shareprice might be a bit lower then, or alternatively you can wait for the next set of financial accounts when Vast has less than $3m revenue
An apology would be nice...
What amused me the most was the chairman claiming that "we are all shareholders here". He is technically right but some of us bought in before the share price crashed and watched our savings disappear and others bought in the other week so that they can claim solidarity and keep their comfy position on the board.
Regardless of whatever deals RP had done in the past, AP decided to borrow $6 million on a two year loan from SSGI on top of all the other debt to buy Eureka.
AP isn't choosing to reorganize the company now because it's a sensible long-term plan, he's doing it because under his leadership Vast has defaulted on it's debt repayments.
Every way you look at it, he screwed up. Now somehow, despite embarrassing the President of Zimbabwe who personally re-opened Eureka and claimed very publicly that Delta were going to create 400 jobs and invest $30m, Vast are going to convince the same government that they have the financial resources to mine diamonds?
I will be amazed if he pulls this off.
I used to give Andrew the benefit of the doubt but after watching today's performance I think it is absolutely disgraceful to tell shareholders the Pickstone Peerless won't be generating any money for Vast for years to come.
One can only conclude that each time he or the chairman has commented on Pickstone Peerless or talked it up in presentations has been a big fat distortion of it's true value to shareholders.
What we have discovered in recent months is that the two producing mines are in fact pigs with lipstick on. My only question is what else is out their oinking at us that we aren't aware of?
Well it seems like everyone in the meeting seems happy that the board has decided that Pickstone, Eureka and Giant are nothing but liabilities now.
You can kiss goodbye to all of those previously fantastic assets now that the business is restructuring and the board are 'cleaning up' the balance sheet.
So AP admitted today that for Vast shareholders Pickstone Peerless was not going to contribute cash to Vast for many years to come. So we have learned this year that Manaila is a piece of crap and Pickstone Peerless may as well be owned by another company from a shareholder perspective.
Funny he didn't seem to mention that in all of the podcasts and presentations previously. What a crook!
Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVetMtU7AS8
Part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPJ0Npario4
Has there been any positive news yet?
Thanks Krazy (and MB)!
Sorry Sandy, I couldn't resist a cheap shot! I get the general point you are making and I think you actually qualify your posts well unlike others.
As arm-chair executives I think we can argue the cash flow issue both ways. I can sympathize to some degree that Vast thought T2 might have been in the bag and they have just been unlucky, but this doesn't sound very logical to me and I'm not able to take AP's word at this.
As you say there's not much point in repeating the same arguments so lets look forwards and see what AP says in the meeting
"The bitter ones then camp out offering Cassandra-like warnings and hurling blame at the company - but really, it's one's own strategy one must manage. IMO."
Two points:
1) The company is absolutely to blame for any failures. Investors accept that untoward events can happen in business but when a company repeatedly fails to deliver on it's objectives and the promises it makes to shareholders then it quite rightly deserves criticism and should be held to account. It's not the shareholders or Mercuria's fault that the company is having cash-flow issues, it's poor management and bad decision making.
2) Cassandra was right and Troy was destroyed
Good spot. That timeline for Marange makes sense to me. I hope AP can restore optimism here and deliver some good news to shareholders for a change, but we shall see what news gets delivered next week.
I am kinda puzzled by the mining by July comments. I appreciate that these are alluvials deposits but it still makes sense to deliniate the resource and do some drilling to work out where to start mining and how deep to mine. Otherwise you run the risk of missing the higher grade deposits. Plus Vast needs to secure the area, buy equipment etc.
According to Botswana Diamonds:
Preliminary results from a due diligence review of Block T1A have highlighted potential for modern alluvial placers and the possibility for older conglomerates. Next steps will be to investigate the potential of the modern alluvial diamond deposits and older conglomerates on the property. Assuming positive results, field work will be closely followed by drilling, pitting and bulk sampling which will form part of a pre-feasibility study. This may entail further funding beyond the initial US$1 million committed to the programme by Vast.
Hopefully we will find out soon
Mines minister Winston Chitando told the Independent last week that Russia's Alrosa, one of the world's largest diamond mining firms and a new joint venture company owned by the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) with a yet to be named investment partner, were also issued licenses and would start operating in Chiadzwa by next year.
Discussions are at a stage for both Alros aand Anjin to resume diamond mining in the Chiadzwa area.
In addition, there is a joint vneture company owned by ZCDC, a company representing the Chiadzwa community and a technical or financial partner who will also be undertaking diamond mining in Chiadzwa. One of the companies will be operational by July this year. The other two in the first quarter of next year. More details on this will be unveiled as they are firmed up.
Source:
http://zimbabwe-today.com/anjin-set-to-resume-mining-in-chiadzwa/
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Presumably Chitando is talking about the Heritage Concession there in relation to the community joint vneture? I'm not sure I like the sound of "technical OR financial partner" and the suggestion that Vast will have to work with ZCDC, which is currently under US sanctions.
Any thoughts?
Fantastic news: BCL to be liquidated by June which means we might get some exciting news on the Maibwe JV in the next few months!
https://m.facebook.com/YaronaFMNews/photos/a.375071869169986/2890048461005635/?type=3&theater
Great post! Just to add that it is also possible that there might be alluvials near Thorny River too according to the last RNS:
"Work has commenced on potential secondary (alluvial) diamond deposits in the project area. The nearby and worked-out Marsfontein diamond mine was host to eluvial diamond deposits running at grades of 1,433 cpht".
I think it is great that BOD has these lottery tickets, but the best thing is that Thorny River will provide the company with a decent amount of free cash to fund future exploration, which should hopefully reduce or eliminate the need to raise money through placings. BOD has very little debt and low operating costs, so from what I can see the company appears to be in great health.
I think we should also celebrate the fact we have an MD who is absolutely passionate about diamonds and has plenty of experience under his belt. With so many exciting projects on the go with our joint venture partners, we just need to get maybe one or two successes and BOD will end up generating super profits. When James Campbell and the other directors start sticking their own money into projects like Vuotomi or buying shares then you know things are starting to looking good for the company. Plenty of positive news to come and given the limited number of shares in circulation we should see some nice rises.
Oh my word a sensible policy decision by the government! Now all they need to do is to allow exporters to keep their US dollars. There's no point in investing in Zimbabwe if the government steals your hard currency and only allows you to be paid in Zimbabwe RTGS dollars.
Gope Diamonds
At the time of its closure BCL Investment through its subsidiary Maibwe Diamonds (BOD) where they hold 51% had discovered a number of diamondiferous kimberlites at their Prospecting Licence number 86 (PL86). BCL exploration projects in the Gope area are estimated to have a potential value of over P20 billion. It is alleged that in mid-2016 it was discovered that the drilling showed that the diamond is of high grade and quality. Maibwe project has a potential in situ value of $1.9 billion (P21 billion). In 2013 Botswana Diamonds signed a joint venture with Brightstone Mining on the block. BCL subsequently took over the block in 2015 and created Maibwe Diamonds. Botswana Diamonds retains a 15% position in Maibwe Diamonds.
http://www.thepatriot.co.bw/news/item/3817-why-ieh-wants-bcl.html
Maibwe rumoured to be worth up to $1.9 billion!