Member Info for Hogsnipe

Received this email from Pensana today. Doesn't seem to be in the news or anywhere on the Pensana website, so here's the full text. There is also a chart showing the 35% rise in the last month of NDPr >99% oxide prices. The closing comment implies that Pensana's economic case anf feasibility has been correspondingly enhanced:
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Pensana leading the race to develop the world's first rare earth processing hub as NdPr prices near US$100,000 per tonne

Shanghai Metas Market NdPr oxide prices have risen over 35% in the last month to RMB627,500 (US$97,000) per tonne continuing the strong trend which has seen prices double since early 2020.

Adamas Intelligence forecasts a 15 to 20 per cent increase in demand for magnet rare earths during 2021 and expects NdPr demand to more than double by 2030.

Post 2030 Adamas warns that: "It is exceptionally challenging to foresee how the supply side of the rare earth industry will be able to keep up with rapidly growing demand for magnet rare earths under any realistic scenario. The rapid demand growth of the 2020s will soon be dwarfed by the demand growth of the 2030s."

City analysts, financial press and trade experts are among commentators naming Pensana as the frontrunner in the race to develop the first major rare earth processing facility in over a decade to meet this burgeoning demand from the EV and Offshore Wind Turbine supply chains.

The proposed US$125 million Saltend processing facility will produce over 12,500 tonnes per annum of rare earth oxides of which 4500 tonnes per annum will be NdPr oxides.

It will be the first rare earth processing hub to be established in a Freeport processing rare earth feedstock imported from the Company's state of the art Longonjo mine in Angola and from other feedstock sources.

Rare earth prices are now higher than the forecast prices used in the economic studies for the project which reported an NPV of US$2.3 billion and an IRR of 57%.

For further information, please contact, CEO Tim George or Chairman Paul Atherley at contact@pensana.co.uk or visit www.pensana.co.uk
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The APC UK Automotive Transformation Fund competition for £1Bn of capital investment funding was launched in July 2020.
The first 'Expression of Interest' (EoI) capex round competition opened 13 Jul 2020 and closed 5 Aug 2020 and "winners" were notified on 28 Aug 2020. No public information has ever been provided.
Since then there have been another 11 ATF capex competitions all open for up to 1 month, with successful applicants notified about 1 month after each one closed, but a complete news blank on who they are.
Apart from Pensana's RNS annoucement of success in the first stage of Round 7, I can find nothing, absolutely zillch, on the outcome of all of these capex competitions. (There were two small limited funding ATF "Feasibility Study" competitions in July and December 2020, and the results and final awards for these were publicly announced very quickly on 3 Nov 2020 and 9 Mar 2021 respectively showing all of the competition entrants and project summaries).
I find it weird there is no information at all about the outcome or awards of any of the ATF capex competitions. Success in these EoI rounds is supposed to lead to the entrant being invited to participate in "Full Stage Application competition strand to be announced". Neither is there any news of when this will happen.
Can it really be the case that there is now a growing 12-month backlog of successful stage 1 capex competition winners, all queuing up for this next stage? And the rounds just seem to go on and on - latest is Round 13 with results not notified until 24 Sep 2021.
Also - why is Pensana the only organisation who has released news about their successs in the any of the EoI rounds?
It doesn't make any sense.

Bwana - thanks for your feedback. Agree 100% about PRE SP manipulation. As I said, the outcome of the next ATF stage seems very vague, and ATF must now be under considerable pressure from the dozens of ventures who have succeeded in passing the first stage in Rounds 1 - 12 to give a roadmap for delivery of funding ASAP.
My best guess on a date for Pensana to reveal all in an RNS will be one after there is a large, unexplained 24 hour leap in the SP.

See:
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/956485/small-cap-wrap---glencore-bluejay-mining-bacanora-lithium-and-more-956485.html

Positive shout for Pensana following recent 29% hike in China NdPr prices. See how today's SP ends up.

https://www.clbrief.com/angola-rare-earths-mining-project-critical-to-global-supply-chain-independent-of-china/

What do you make of this?
https://allafrica.com/stories/202105190166.html

I've found the details for ATF EoI Round 13 here:

https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/972/overview

It opens today Jul 30, closes Aug 18 and results go out on Sep 24.
So we can all forget about any Pensana ATF RNS before at the earliest Sep 24 and instead get out and enjoy the great sod*ing British summer.

This link:
https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/948/overview
takes you to the ATF Round 12 GOV.UK information page.
I found if you use a different number (3 digits preceding the '/overview') in the link you can get all sorts of info on government grant programs. For instance, change 948 to 820, press enter, and you'll see the information page for Round 8 (the one where Pensana succeeded in going forward to the next stage. 866 takes you to Round 9. 896 Round 10. 904 Round 11.

I've been trying higher numbers than 948 looking for Round 13 - but most of the time I get "you do not have permission" responses. You also also get results like 947 - BEIS PRISM Program grant applications.

If you feel like trying your hand (I'm 76 and life is short), the change between Round numbers so far have been between 8 and 46, so you might find Round 13 somewhere between 956 and 994? If you do find it - click the Dates tab to find out when the round starts, closes and results are announced, then we'll all know not to expect any ATF Pensana news before Oct 24th....

On the ATF front, the most recent in the ATF's 'Expression of Interest' EoI rounds - Round 12, closed a few days ago on July 21. The results will be notified to round competitors on Aug 23. Pensana successfully competed in Round 8 EoI competition and were notified of progression to the next stage by ATF on Mar 19 and Pensana released an RNS Mar 29 7:00am to confirm this.
Incidentally, on the previous trading day (Friday Mar 26th) Pensana's SP shot up from 148 to 172p - just sayin'....
What happens next is far from clear. It involves submission of a Full Project Application for Funding (seems to be a combination of Due Diligence and Final Feasibility report) which goes before the Dept for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (DBEIS) and Innovate UK for evaluation and recommendation.
The final decision who gets how much will be made in an 'ATF Capital Investment Full Round Strand' competition and I can find nothing at all about when this will happen and results become public. There could be (even) more EoI Rounds to come after Round 12, and each of these takes approx 60 days from start to the next Round. That said I have not been able to find out if there is to be a Round 13 (see my following post if you want to have a crack at this yourself).
Tony/BwanaMakuba - you both seem to be well-connected with Pensana's board - so perhaps a direct question to them might throw some light on what is happening since Mar 21? My guess though is that Pensana's hands are pretty tightly tied during this second stage process - hence the absence of any news for so long?

Dominant AT trading again today - 168 trades by 15:28 and 95 of those were ATs (66 sells and 29 buys.)
AT sells 221K and AT buys 96K - sells 2.3 multiple of buys
Total O trades were 67 pretty evenly spread between buys/sells but about 80% of the volume done after 12 noon with buys running at 92.7% of sell volume
So no consistency again between O and AT trades - former neutral latter agressively negative again.
AT sell trades seem to have been most active in the am today (maybe they clocked my last post and started covering their tracks (lol)), then they changed tack to buying in the pm with AT buy vol greater than sell from 12:000 noon.
The game goes on .... yawn.....
And the most recent trades show a heavy O trades selling end-of-play blitz going on - just look at those paired 146.5K and 145K and 12K trades - I'll buy yours if you'll buy mine....
Perhaps Hamilton is desperate to see end of day 85p - just to prove he was on the ball a few weeks ago. Not bothered mate.

No news, no RNS, no change in PRE fundamentals - so what's currently driving the PRE share price?
There's been a significant increase in the level of AT trades recently, coupled with a pronounced surge in activity after 12 noon.
Those of you with Level 2 access may have better data than me (I use ADVFN Trades ticker) but here's my guess based on some spreadsheet analysis.
Taking Jul 26 trading as an example - relatively quiet selling from open to 12:00 noon - mostly O trades.
Then from 12:30 to 13:26 there were 45 trades - almost all ATs - only 3 ordinary trades. In that time 148K sell volume and 18K buy vol, during which time the bid/offer/spread dropped like a stone from 96.6/97.8/1.2 to 88.4/91/2.6.
95% of O trade buy volume took place after 12:30 (267K shares) and Buy/Sell ratio for O trades was 480% or nearly 5 to 1, whereas AT trade sell volume after 12:30 was 134K vs 13K buys - a ratio of 1 to 10.
So why is PRE trading so active in the pm? I'm guessing it's down to traders in other time zones. Who is 4 to 5 hours behind GMT - the Cayman Islands, Bahamas and of course New York. The dominant AT action suggests algorithmic trading - maybe day traders, but more likely hedge funds I'm guessing?
Anyhow, the upshot of all this was that PRE became bargain-basement again by 13:30 and buyers piled in with 2 late trades marked as buys of 125K each.
So my conclusion is that fro the moment the PRE price bears no relation to the real world, and it is simply being gamed from day to day with 60% of all trades now coming from computer algorithms. By now I guess most private investors are disinclined either to add or cut their holdings and simply waiting for the real world to re-assert itself. Hopefully through a PRE announcement of firm progress with financing. Until then, welcome to the casino.....

Govt announces £22Bn fund for UK innovators:

https://www.theengineer.co.uk/government-announces-innovation-strategy/

Hard to tell through the waffle whether this has potential for Pensana financing this year.

"In a statement, business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: “We have not always turned our genius for innovation into jobs and companies here in Britain.

“Through this long-term plan, we want to rekindle our country’s flame of innovation and discovery, helping businesses to seize the vast opportunities that innovation can bring.

“If we get this right, we can build the foundations for the new industries of tomorrow, and ensure British firms are at the front of the pack to turn world-leading science into new products and services that are successful in international markets.”

DP - what do you mean - "Also the Molycorp REE plant in Estonia."??

Charley - 10 sec to find this - why not have a read?

https://www.first4magnets.com/about-us-i1

fatbanker - thanks for the ref 'painting the tape' - had to look it up on Investopaedia but it made interesting reading!
Maybe you can comment on a previous post regarding PRE trading anomalies?
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Can anybody make any sense of ADVFN's PRE trading today (19th July) 41 trades before 8:00 am for over 1/4M shares all priced way above the spread - some at 184p+. Then in 3 mins up to 13:00 - another 43 trades (reversing the first lot ??). Two big buys after end of play of 150K each at 17:15pm and at exactly 12:00 two large trades of 273K shares price well above the spread again. What is going on here? Didn't affect price much over the day.
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See:
https://www.powerengineeringint.com/hydrogen/next-step-for-north-sea-integrated-wind-and-hydrogen-project/

Saltend and PX Group the favoured Northern England location for onshore facilities for 200 float wind farm turbines in N Sea. Chalk up another synergy for Pensana.

"The UK’s first re-manufacturing line for high-performance sintered rare earth magnets for use in electric vehicles, aerospace, renewable energy technologies and low carbon technologies will be developed by the University of Birmingham".

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2021/03/first-recycling-plant-for-rare-earth-magnets.aspx

UKRI UK Research and Innovation (sponsored by Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)) has awarded the University of Birmingham £4.3m to establish an RE magnet recycling plant, to be located at Tyseley Energy Park (TEP, a research and development facility dedicated to delivering clean energy innovation). UKRI runs Innovate UK which in turn runs the £1Bn ATF grant fund from which Pensana hopes to secure capital investment grants this autumn.

The proposed Birmingham plant will be owned and operated by HyProMag Ltd - a new company founded by David Kennedy (who previously founded and owned Less Common Metals (LCM - which already produces rare earth magnet alloys, but from mine feedstock rather than recycling). It will licence the HPMS process patented by U of Birmingham Patent (2012) for hydrogen decrepitation of rare earth magnet metal scrap recycling - co-invented by Allan Walton - another founding director of HyProMag Ltd.

This is all very eary stage stuff, and needs a lot of supporting infrastructure - a new dedicated 3MW hydrogen fuel plant, powered by a biomass reactor, to provide the hydrogen processing gas. No indication of capacity and RE magnet alloy tonnage output is given, but I suspect it will be pilot-plant scale output probably similar capacity to LCM's future output, and neither can produce finished magnets - only RE magnet metal alloy powders of variable compsition for onward processing by RE magnet manufacturers. These magnet fabricators are few and far between in UK and Europe with only 3% of the world's RE magnet production capacity (China has about 80% and Japan the rest).

It's good news that the UK govt recognises the need to urgently secure the RE magnet metals supply chain, and is actively putting its money behind the ground-breakers, BUT it's arguable that Pensana Saltend offers it much greater scope for this development given the synergies there: free port status; plug & play site infrastructure services; Equinor 600MW capacity blue hydrogen supply network; much-need red wall investment for Northern jobs and prosperity; better logistics and access to North Sea wind turbine magnet recycling feedstock; Pensana's declared intentions to build a hydrogen-based magnet recycling production line at Saltend, maybe licencing the above HPMS process. The list goes on.

Pensana is doing just what it needs to now - steadily positioning itself as the preferred choice for future investment, in my view.

Sorry - these were yesterday's trading not today's.

Can anybody make any sense of ADVFN's PRE trading today? 41 trades before 8:00 am for over 1/4M shares all priced way above the spread - some for over 184p. Then in 3 mins before 13:00 - another 43 trades for over 1/4M shares, reversing the first lot. Two big buys after end of play of 150K each at 17:15pm and at exactly noon two large trades of 273K shares price above the spread again. What is going on here? Not much change in the bid over the day in any event.

See:
https://www.energylivenews.com/2021/07/19/uks-gigafactory-ambitions-at-dead-end-without-more-support/

Seems the EAC (Environmental Audit Committe) are far from impressed with the UK's puny ATF fund (£500M) and warn Govt that it needs to significantly scale up investment support in EVs if it's ever to compete with Europe and the Far East, stating:
“Without further government support, establishment of the BEV sector in the UK, critical to maintain our auto industry supply chain, will reach a dead end.”

The body has heard evidence that other governments back factories with £750 million per plant.

The EAC also considers that the adoption of a critical raw materials strategy for the UK merits serious consideration.

The EU and America are already fairly well advanced in their own critical materials strategy reviews and now starting to look at supportive trading legislation, so it should be fairly easy for Boris and friends to cut-and-paste from these to come up with our own raw materials supply chain strategy and policy in record time, and put some proper money froward to underpin it. Starting with Pensana of course......