Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Fantastic news we’ve got the paperwork done and we’re drilling already. Also encouraging to hear the JV has been building roads to facilitate rainy season drilling too. It will be interesting to see what the news flow of the drilling campaign will be with a major company in as partner. Either way, hopefully Arc keeps its investors informed as drilling progresses.
I’d encourage all of you to not to bother to try to make estimates on the share price based on value of a Tier one deposit. We haven’t found a tier one yet, how Anglo perceived the lease in the 90s isn’t necessarily how they perceive it now (but it’s a great sign they’re on board here) and there’s a lot of work to go before we have something with a value we can estimate over “but tier one”. When we get some estimates and more results from the company itself then I think we can start trying to value this.
I’m with you Small_Holding.
I think the most frustrating thing has been the lack of a forward path with dates so we can understand where the stock price might go from here. I also completely understand that Arc’s hands are tied as the government will go at its own pace.
We need to get drilling. We need to know how many boreholes and when they’ll be drilled. I can’t see us drilling this dry season, personally. Which would mean two full drilling seasons missed from waiting for the deal to close and one curtailed early due to legal proceedings (which also delayed the deal). I’d also hope to have seen some Botswana results too by now.
Anyway, I think the big takeaway is that the pieces are there. The will is there. It’s just not happening quickly enough and that’s frustrating.
While I’m in no way condoning what Peggy is saying generally (I am an investor and I think Arc is going places) big companies can be really slow and can wait until deals are finished legally to even start thinking about plans.
BUT, I believe Nick in the CC mentioned something about AA contracting drilling rigs as we speak. That’s maybe different to having them roll up on site though!
Nice to see the JV signed, it’s a late but significant milestone. The lack of share price movement didn’t surprise me at all, in fact this was in line with my prediction back in January when the topic was discussed.
Finally after all the bureaucracy the obstacles in the way of starting drilling and with some success a sustained share price rise are fewer and fewer. Anyway hopefully we can get some drilling in this season as we have completely wasted the last two.
Yeah fairly conservative. I think 5pish is consistent with what we’ve lost through the “uncertainty” that’s been priced in by the JV setup to be rubber stamped taking so long. It might spike above that, but I think we settle back down afterwards. I think we’d have been 7-10p if the market was in better condition.
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Escondida is a porphyry copper mine. They tend to be quite small aerially but thick (think like a cylinder) because of how they’re formed geologically. So comparing the area of even the most prolific copper mine in the world versus our (non porphyry) Zambian assets is meaningless.
It’s still a good asset and Anglo wouldn’t be involved if they didn’t think there’s a good chance of success to make it work.
So I assume from a strategic perspective, we are looking at Namibia because it’s a similar geological setting to Botswana but perhaps fewer big players around so we can get bigger licences.
Nice to see we’re using our money from the JV to try build more of an asset base.
I wish I shared your optimism for “almost certain” to find the next Tier 1! I agree the signs are looking good, but if it was almost certain we’d have already found a juicy thick sulphide ore body by now. Let’s not understate geological uncertainty. Anglo wouldn’t be here if they didn’t think they stand a chance of finding something, but they’ll know it’s not a slam dunk. I say this as a fellow Earth Scientist working in an extractive resource industry that’s not mining, likely similar to yourself.
The annoying thing here is non technical risk slowing all this down. The court cases that impacted the drilling season last year, the Cadastre closing and delaying the deal from finalising allowing us to start drilling next year. When the JV is done I’m looking forward to a well oiled exploration process to kick off and no more setbacks.
Hopefully it is closed out by the AGM and we will have an opportunity to ask about timelines and drilling plans with some certainty.
I think we go to 4.5p on closure of the deal, beyond that let’s see. Some creeping upwards price movement as drilling activity eventually commences in anticipation of results.
@SeisNav, I hope I am wrong :)
But a re-rate implies there’s risk in the deal that’s currently priced in. Everyone here always says it’s a done deal, just waiting for the Cadastre to rubber stamp things.
Which one is true?
Spot on NorEscO. I wouldn’t expect a re-rate on conclusion of the due diligence. Beyond maybe a 1p or so boost (what we’ve drifted since the takeover was announced). But this is the AIM so it’s possible if people with short memories pile back in.
We can only expect sustained upwards movement in the share price when we get drilling and releasing good news to the market. Due to the delays because of the Cadastre closing, I really don’t expect anything to happen until the next dry season.
Yes I expect the strategy will be similar to the analyses generated for the Zambia assets I.e. some shallow holes to get quick geochem coverage over a wide area to high grade deeper drilling zones.
Hopefully this means quicker results and news flow!
Another 90 days puts us in November, or the rainy season. Most people might expect Anglo to be able to drill year round, but these things take infrastructure which takes time to build. And no company is going to start doing anything until DD is finished and a JV is formed. So this pretty much confirms no drilling in Zambia until 2023, and probably no results until the second half of 2023 at the very earliest.
Pleased to hear about Botswana and I’m looking forward to some good news flow from this.
Ant, I never said I expect the share price to fall. It’ll go up when we start drilling and hitting copper. I’m not short Arc, I’m a long term holder.
As for why am I here? Apologies we should just leave share message boards for ramping. My questions are the sorts of things we should be asking and scrutinising the management of Arc for. As a message board for shareholders surely that’s a legitimate reason? The only way up is regular and positive news flow from drilling.
It’s naive to think that posts on a message board impact the share price negatively, when we just agreed a massive deal that will help unlock our assets and the share price did next to nothing.
Turtlewax, I agree it’s not our of the question. Are they going to construct the infrastructure needed like improving roads (that exists at Sentinel, clearly because it’s a fully operational mine) straight away?
Maybe these are questions for the next investor call.