Rainbow Rare Earths Phalaborwa project shaping up to be one of the lowest cost producers globally. Watch the video here.
Ortonowski said in the event that copper concentrate flows from mines in Democratic Republic of Congo to smelters in Zambia were reduced, it would cut the amount of sulphuric acid produced by the smelters shipped to SXEW plants in both countries, potentially impacting their ability to produce copper cathodes.
"The 5% import duty will increase raw material cost increases for smelters so may choose to reduce their concentrate consumption. The smelters will produce less copper blister, anode and cathode and much less sulphuric acid, which could lead to less SXEW cathode production in the region too," he said.
Ortonowski said the copper concentrate market in Zambia was currently in a moderate to mild deficit that he qualified as a market in balance, but the 5% royalty could "plunge into extreme deficit especially in 2019 and 2020", with potential to see 100,000t of copper in concentrates not exported from DRC.
Supporting his argument, Ortonowski said Africa was the most responsive region of the world to copper price drops. "Mined copper loss was 422,000t of production in 2017 due to the copper price fall," he said.
Nice ort, what would really give credence to the new dawn of this Co. Would be to see some more buys by the Directors. I am not attacking but I do believe actions speak louder than words., and this action would go a long way to helping the positivity of the share holders. Granted there will be closed periods, but not all the time. So we wait to see.
Interesting bit of info there, did the Board not get to see this deal before it was signed off? Just goes to show that we, as shareholders, really do have a responsibility to make sure that OUR Board is looking after our interests. Are we not about to sign some very important deals in the very near future? Is there any way these can be checked off? I am way out of my depth here but is there anything we can do to make sure this kind of thing, or a similar potentially catastrophic, event does not happen again? Serious question as we have all entrusted our hard earned here.
I hope he does get back to you fhp, it would be nice if you keep us updated, perhaps if you don't hear anything we should all send him one just to remind him that we are still here and believe that something good is going to happen.