Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
The investment case for SRES is quite compelling.
All concrete producing companies across the globe are using less cement to reduce costs as the price of cement continues to rise due to increase production costs. Cement production is extremely energy intensive as it’s produced in huge kilns that can never be turned off. Therefore, the Co2 footprint is massive. The cement industry is one of the largest culprits to Co2 emissions globally, so with every government committed to reducing their Co2 footprint the concrete industry is always under pressure to contribute. And many are.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cement-producers-are-developing-a-plan-to-reduce-co2-emissions/
Demand for pozzolan material whether it be PFA, GGBS or naturals are increasing YoY as an alternative to standard cement. Pozzolans are used in CEM 2 and CEM 3 cement blends. CEM 2 is 70% grey or white cement with 30% pozzolan or another material. PFA is usually favoured because it’s cheap - byproduct from coal power stations. However, PFA is rapidly running out globally and within a few years won’t be available. Concrete product manufacturers I supply here in the UK are now sourcing PFA overseas because it’s still cheaper than sourcing grey cement from down the road. There isn’t enough PFA left in the UK to satisfy the demand as there are now only 4 coal power stations open in the UK. These will close by 2025.
http://www.powerstations.uk/coal-countdown/
The same pattern is also happening in the USA.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/06/23/global-demise-of-coal-fired-generation-driven-by-idle-and-unprofitable-plants/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coals-decline-continues-with-13-plant-closures-announced-in-2020/
With PFA availability declining rapidly natural pozzolan use is increasing as an effective and cheaper alternative to cement. SRES is sitting on a huge resource and about to go into production. And only a £10 mil MCAP? Absolute peanuts.
Me personally with the way the market is going I believe it’s only a matter of time before one of the big boys like CRH, LaFarge Holcim or Cemex buy out the pozzolan business in order to meet their growing demand.
Disruptor - Yes Breedon have become quite the force in the UK, with the acquisition of Hope in 2015 and now some CEMEX assets. It's been an administrative nightmare at work the past few weeks with these new assets trading under Pinnacle Construction Ltd until CMA approval.
As for market valuations, I can't say for the US market as I don't know it that well. But the most important aspect of this is any pozzolan material whether it be PFA, GGBS or natural pozzolan is it must be cheaper then grey cement.
Grey cement is roughly over £100 per tonne based on tanker load. PFA has been £30/T. GGBS around £60-£70. Natural you are probably talking £50/T.
About 9 million tonnes of cement was produced last year and around 3.6 millions tonnes of cementious pozzolan material in the UK. That figure is increasing YoY. You can look at the UK Building material stats via this link. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/building-materials-and-components-statistics-august-2020
Download the table and look at tab 8 for cement stats.
I believe in the US cement production was around 85 million tonnes. You can get loads of US cement stats via the USGS.
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/nmic/cement-statistics-and-information
In teh latest June stats for the USA it reads:
"Substitutes: Most portland cement is used to make concrete, mortars, or stuccos, and competes in the construction
sector with concrete substitutes, such as aluminum, asphalt, clay brick, fiberglass, glass, gypsum (plaster), steel,
stone, and wood. Certain materials, especially fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace ****, develop good
hydraulic cementitious properties by reacting with lime, such as that released by the hydration of portland cement.
Where readily available (including as imports), these SCMs are increasingly being used as partial substitutes for
portland cement in many concrete applications and are components of finished blended cements"
US used 25 million tonnes of pozzolan materials last year, most of that was either fly ash and GGBS. But with fly ash sources rapidily disappearing natural pozzolan source demand is increasing each year. Its cheaper than GGBS. Overall the pozzolan market is expected to be worth $90 billion dollars by 2027 in the US alone.
I've joined the party and thank you for the welcome. My trades have for some reason gone through the NEX exchange. A number of other trades gone through their today.
Date & Time
Volume
Price
10/09/2020 16:26 350,000 0.284
10/09/2020 16:26 26,778 0.284
10/09/2020 16:22 350,000 0.284
10/09/2020 16:00 177,130 0.284
10/09/2020 14:22 283,098 0.284
10/09/2020 13:31 282,746 0.284
10/09/2020 08:58 1,781,446 0.28
10/09/2020 08:58 1,066,966 0.28
10/09/2020 08:30 500,000 0.27
10/09/2020 08:30 588,937 0.26
10/09/2020 08:04 48,990 0.27
https://www.nexexchange.com/company-all-latest-trades?isin=GB00B075Z681&listingtypeid=PLSU
I've been watching SRES on the sidelines now and now might be the time to jump in as demand for natural pozzolans is only going to increase with concrete companies using more CEM 2 and CEM3 blends to meet Co2 targets.
I work as an additive supplier to the concrete industry in the UK. Sourcing fly ash (PFA) has been difficult in recent times due to the closures of power stations in the UK. Concrete products manufacturers love PFA due to it's pozzolanic properties and it's cheap too. However, the closure of UK coal power stations has meant PFA has been in short supply, so companies now source from overseas. Eventually, PFA will won't be available and that's when the big boys (CRH, Cemex) come sniffing. GLA.
https://www.crhcement.com/custom-mix-and-flex-solutions/#tab-id-1
https://pozzolan.org/about-npa.html
FORT are a leaner outfit and not over stretched with debt like Ibstock are in at the moment.
Exactly - how many in groups greater than 6 turn up. Probably less than 1%.
Some interesting monthly attendance figures from last year. Sept always has a lower attendance rate as kids go back to school but Q4 always decent given its the run up to XMAS.
https://www.launchingfilms.com/research-databank/
Been doing some research on graphite testing CSIRO have done for other mining companies. There is one I found back in 2015, when CSIRO tested graphite samples for TALGA resources. These took 10 months to complete.
https://im-mining.com/2015/06/26/csiro-findings-boost-talgas-swedish-talga-graphite-graphene-project-resources/
https://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/csiro-findings-boost-talgas-swedish-graphene-project/
"Australian technology materials development company Talga Resources says there are “positive outcomes from a detailed 10-month assessment by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) on graphite and graphene samples from Talga’s high grade and wholly-owned Nunasvaara deposit in Sweden.”
Now I don't know how different the tests will be so use this info as an indicator and not an absolute timescale.
Won't affect MLVN, so it's business as usual. I'm expecting a trading statement or results soon and no doubt with a very bullish statement going forward.
https://twitter.com/ArmadaleCapital/status/1303262299113750529/photo/1
Don't forget ACP's neighbour in Mahenge Blackrock Mining had their mining licence approved in Feb 2019. So there will be many crossovers in the wider Environment and Social Impact assessments, which have already have been approved via Blackrocks own submission.
So alot of it is just a formality and with Asimwe Kabunga behind the scenes the license will get approval before the Tanzania General election next month.
It is projected that the revenue of higher education in the United Kingdom will amount to approximately 37,8 billion U.S. Dollars by 2024.
https://www.statista.com/forecasts/982159/higher-education-revenue-in-the-united-kingdom
More trades on NEX.
transaction time volume price
07/09/2020 11:39 125925 0.188
07/09/2020 10:52 1494020 0.1806
07/09/2020 10:41 37420 0.195
07/09/2020 10:14 100000 0.1733
07/09/2020 10:11 265278 0.1733
07/09/2020 09:09 150000 0.1897
07/09/2020 08:26 44469 0.198
07/09/2020 08:09 300000 0.198
Not concerned about the the dip on SP. MLVN numbers comparable to WEY yet they have £35 mil MCAP and MLVN £2 mil.
Once the market wakes up to this then a correction will come.
Nice Tweet summarising just how undervalued MLVN are:
~MLVN company assets £10.8 mil. Group revenue £7.6 mil of whicb London c. £3.5 mil. London School open since 10.08.2020. Forecast revenue £6.9 mil to 31.12.19. Cash £1mil + 26.06. MCAP only £2 mil.
Schools, Universities and Colleges have all reopened this week.
Mining licence will be land before the Tanzania General Election end of Oct. Current President John Magufuli clearly pro mining and with the latest mining reforms the target is for mining to contribute 10% GDP to the Tanzania economy by 2025. Currently contributes 3.5%. Matt Bull clearly indicated he wanted the licence granted before then. I reckon it will this month.
ACPs neighbour In Mahenge - Blackrock Mining had their graphite mining license approved in Feb 2019. That means a lot of the donkey work in terms of local impact assessments has been done.
https://allafrica.com/stories/202008171251.html
Sep 01, 2020 https://www.graphene-info.com/xiaomis-mi-10-ultra-smartphone-said-sport-first-mass-produced-graphene-li-ion
Xiaomi's upcoming smartphone, the high-end Mi 10 Ultra, will reportedly be sporting "the first mass-produced 120W graphene battery".
Xiami's new Mi 10 Ultra phone to wield a graphene battery image
Xiaomi claims the 4,500mAh “graphene-based lithium-ion” battery packs 1,000 times greater conductivity than traditional “carbon black” batteries. The brand was also quoted as saying that the battery remained at over 90% capacity after 800 charge and discharge cycles.
Don't forget we already have in place MOUs with the following:
Matrass Group, China – 30kT
CoolRU IT, China – 5kT
Datong Resources, China – 25kT
That already exceeds forecast 1st year production of 53KT. We won't have any problems with the offtake agreements, as the high purity grade ACP already know they have means demand will exceed supply.