Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
I forgot too that news on a new JV partner for Sunland Minerals project could drop any time this year if talks have progressed since last November.
https://www.miningreview.com/news/botswana-diamonds-kalahari-2019/
It looks like the MD is over at the Mining Investment Botswana conference giving another talk. The MD of Lucara Diamonds, Naseem Lahri and plenty of Government ministers are at the conference, so it should be a great opportunity to hobnob.
I am never sure if any formal business gets done at these conferences but it is great to see James continuing to share his knowledge and experience. The Thorny River license has got to be making it's way through the various government departments so I expect we should get some news soon. At least James has the opportunity to bend the ear of various ministers to hurry things along if needed!
Slides below:
https://www.slideshare.net/JamesAHCampbell1/raising-exploration-capital-in-southern-africa-a-diamonds-perspective
News soon I hope as the last RNS was on the 04/04/2019. In fairness BOD has released at least one RNS each month for the past year so I am sure James will be itching to release something as soon as he can and he has been quite active over at Thorny River on Twitter.
Spot on. From what I have read it looks like Mark was ousted to usher in the new lot of corrupt executives. The recent firing of the senior executives at ZCDC to restore confidence lends weight to this theory, as some of those fired were involved in finance and audit.
In other news, more people have been shot dead trying to mine diamonds in Marange:
https://www.zimeye.net/2019/05/16/two-people-shot-dead-and-forty-injured-in-fresh-marange-diamonds-bloodshed/
Well the big news will be the final section 20 license, which will allow Vutomi to commence bulk sampling. This is expected before June and could land any day now. There is a processing plant ready to go and the aim is to make progress towards an indicated resource by year end, hopefully with some diamond sales along the way!
So whilst it’s a bit quiet, the license will be transformative for BOD and should make it profitable, with $2-7m per annum expected just from the bulk sampling. :)
He’s still out there. I can’t believe all of these people would do a field trip just to look at some rocks, especially given that we are so close to bulk mining! So I wonder if the team have found something interesting or if James wanted to share the adventure of discovering a new deposit with them. License predicted in Q2 so hopefully news will land soon :)
Yep, I can’t see much point in going over the same points over and over again. Pickstone has been sold and refinancing is in progress so let’s see what happens.
Kieran, as we have all suffered massive losses you can’t expect us to to sing a CEO’s praises until he actually increases shareholder value. Accountability goes both ways. If you want to cheer as the share price falls, dilution increases and assets are sold off then go ahead, but some of us will be a little more cautious in our optimism until deals are signed and AP delivers on his promises.
Hopefully we are turning a corner, AP has assembled a great team in Zimbabwe and the 10m term sheet is promising. So let’s just wait for AP to get this over the line and the negativity on here will stop.
Thanks Dodge, makes sense. TBTT I admire your cynicism but I don’t think you are right on this one. $10m seens like way too much money for some sort of convertable loan. This actually looks like genuine debt and fantastic news if the Swiss Lawyers are happy with the company. If the company secures this even without marange then they will have done well. Completion still seems a little way off though so it looks like we will get another placing in May. The tide may indeed be turning
This looks like good news, but i’m not sure what is going on with the warrants and Mercuria? Why are more needed for Mercuria if their loan is being paid back and what exactly are the outstanding amounts?
James Campbell has just posted a picture of an interesting group of people who were recently on a field visit to Thorny River:
https://twitter.com/JAHC1/status/1121082151968092160
A CEO of Newfield Resources, a mine manager, a few geologists and other people with experience in Rockwell Diamonds / DeBeers. Clearly there is something worth showing off if all of these people have made the effort to visit Thorny River :)
Ahh good! That is my understanding too but I wasn’t sure how ceased was defined contractually and was slightly concerned as the Q&A refers to this in the context of putting Manaila on care and maintenance.
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Divesting the Company’s remaining interest in Pickstone-Peerless may be an option as is putting Manaila on care and maintenance, however the Company would still require funding to bring the near-term cash producing assets in to production. Furthermore, there is also a liability of US$4 million to Mercuria for the Tranche A funding that would become due and payable should the Company cease operations at Manaila. Whilst producing, the Company maintains a level of optionality over Manaila as the new off-take partner may also take over Tranche A and fund the expansion of Manaila which is expected to transform its production profile and financial performance.
Could someone please ask AP what the status of the $4 million Tranche A Mercuria loan is now that Manaila has been on care and maintenance for nearly five months now? The Q&A implied that this would become payable if operations were ceased at Manaila so it would be helpful to have some clarification regarding this to ascertain when this might be triggered or if anything has been negotiated with Mercuria? Thanks
I enjoy reading Sandy’s posts so it would be nice if we can stop this nonsense about filtering people if you don’t like what they say and this arbitrary good vs bad poster/forum virtue signalling.
Could you briefly explain about the fidelity transactions and the process for gold payments then Lee to set everyone straight?
It is phrases like "ill-informed drivel of people who can't and won't take responsibility" that might perhaps make your comments come across as lecturing.
Anyway as it is Easter and we are all suffering I think we should try and spend less time fighting with each other and instead hope that Vast can rise from the dead so that we may forgive the sins of AP.
Hyperbole aside Sandy, the moral of the story is not to lecture others on their investment strategy, accountability or reasoning, particularly if they have lost more than you.
What a sneering and patronising comment! The angry shareholders who lost the most money kept their faith in the company all the way down, and now you chastise them because you had the foresight to mistrust the CEO sooner!
Yep :)
One way to look at it is that BOD are so confident about the potential of Thorny River that they are happy to give away most of the profits of the bulk mining phase to get to the 5,000 carat bankable feasibility study / Inferred resource stage. Then I think we will see a lot more than $2-$7m per annum revenue from the project and hopefully some major league investment if the bulk mining is a success. The fact that James Campbell is on the ground still exploring for more diamonds on the project area given the drilling is great, here's hoping he finds some of those high grade deposits and perhaps finds time to meet the government and sign off on the final license.
We should also get a nice bonus from Marange too, with the 14% share of the Heritage concession and little capital at risk if things go tits up, which given the state of the Zimbabwe economy is quite possible.
Yep. We know that there are large commercial diamond deposits in Thorny River, Maibwe and Marange. BOD hopes to be getting the license for Thorny River in Q2 and has a plant ready to go. Marange license should be signed next month and Maibwe will at some point get started once BCL has been liquidated. Exciting times ahead :)