Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
On the contrary I really appreciate Bernies style. To me its an indication that he actually knows his stuff and knows what's important. Sure it might be a bit rough round the edges for some city financial sector types but it shows he's not some shyster thats all style and no substance. We are after all a west african mining company and not a hedge fund.
Just a difference in perspective I suppose.
I suspect a lot of people are selling because they were expecting a funding announcement with the license and it looks clear that we won't get as such for another 6 months.
Knowing Kodal this will hover around this level, or maybe even drop slightly more, until one day about 4 months from now when it will absolutely explode in anticipation of the next step. The old buy on rumour and sell on news.
Happy to hold either way. Stuffed as much of these in an ISA as I could afford as, correct me if I'm wrong, you don't pay tax on dividends held that way.
Looks like Mining was on the menu today; from the Communiqué du Conseil Des Minitres...
After considering the items on the agenda, the Council:
- adopted draft texts;
- made appointments;
- and heard communications.
IN THE CHAPTER OF LEGISLATIVE AND REGULATORY MEASURES
1. On the report of the Minister of Mines, Energy and Water, the Council of Ministers adopted:
To. a bill amending Law No. 2015-035 of July 16, 2015 on the organization of the exploration, exploitation and transport of hydrocarbons;
b. a draft decree amending Decree No. 2016-0272 / P-RM of April 29, 2016 setting out the terms of application of Law No. 2015-035 of July 16, 2015;
vs. a draft decree approving the standard production sharing contract.
Mali has a petro gas potential covering an area of ??900 thousand square kilometers.
The Government has adopted a legislative and regulatory framework to oversee the development of the petroleum sector.
The adoption of this device has made it possible to attract national and international investors in the sector and to record real advances in hydrocarbon research.
However, the political and security crisis that Mali has been experiencing since 2012 has slowed down investments.
The draft texts adopted will make our legislative and regulatory framework compliant with international standards, relaunch oil research by raising the level of attractiveness of the sector, encouraging the promotion and exploitation of natural gas as well as the hydrogen.
d. a draft decree establishing the public register of the beneficial owners of extractive companies in Mali.
Mali joined the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in 2006.
This Initiative aims to promote the transparent and responsible management of revenues derived from the exploitation of extractive resources such as oil, gas, metals and minerals.
This Initiative is implemented in accordance with a standard called the “Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Standard”.
The application of this standard requires extractive companies to publish a list of their beneficial owners, their degrees of participation, the methods of exercising this participation or control of said companies.
The adoption of the draft decree will improve the traceability of financial flows in the extractive sector, reduce the risks of corruption, money laundering and increase tax revenues.
Source: https://malijet.com/actualite-politique-au-mali/conseil_des_ministres_du_mali/262637-communiqu%C3%A9-du-conseil-des-ministres-du-13-octobre-2021-cm-n%C2%B02021.html
Nothing explicitly about licenses or even Lithium but hopefully the Minister of Mines slipped our license in the pile while the PM was scribbling.
While I certainly hope the sentiment is true it's important to clarify a few things.
Exploration licences such as the below only need to go through the DNGM and then the Ministry of Mines can sign it off.
Exploitation licences (which we are after) must do the above but then pass to the Prime Ministers desk for final approval.
Our licence has already (as of 13 weeks or whatever it is) passed through the first two government bodies and now awaits approval from the PM.
Activity concerning exploration licences indicates nothing about the state of our licence.
Bernard has always maintained, even since before we had a JORC, that it is his intention is to take Bougouni through to production. Things change of course, but he has never made any suggestions otherwise and it seems fairly evident that it's still the plan.
It'd be interesting to know what Shandong Ruifu think of the deal next door. It was after all them who first put a bid in ~4 years ago for that deposit and things didn't turn out (I forget if it was because they were turned down or if there were problems moving money). They subsequently went on to form Suay Chin in order to invest in Kodal.
Given the common interest the best turn out for us would be if they decided to club together and build some infrastructure. Would certainly cut down on costs for everyone if they didn't have to ship concentrate back to China. I'm sure they'll be pulling Lithium out of Mali for many years to come so it would be a good investment.
In other news I did a bit of digging and found out that the "Conseil des Ministres" meets every Wednesday. So my money's on a Thursday RNS for License news. Not sure if it'll be this Thursday but here's to hoping: https://sgg-mali.ml/fr/le-sgg/communiques-du-conseil-des-ministres.html
We've always said, "Don't forget about the gold." as if its a nice little bonus on top of the Lithium. But the more I think about it, and the more information we get about it the more convinced I am that it could actually be the gold projects that are transformational for us.
We might find that its the Lithium thats a nice little bonus.
Just got a Postcard from Bernard infact.
He says he's down at Ngoulana with the Minister of Mines demonstrating the proper extraction process with his bucket and spade. Steve's on hand nearby with the coffee grinder so they can make it into concentrate. Tomorrow he's off to Fatou to pan for gold with the Prime Minister. Hopes we're not struggling under the weight of the bags we've made the past few weeks.
Picture on the front's him sipping ****tails with the CEO of SinoHydro.
In all honesty I expect at least a slight retrace as traders move on and short termers get inpatient waiting for the next RNS.
While I do believe the fundamentals of the company will see us upwards of a penny I don't see that happening before we have confirmed both the licence and funding for development. That is likely to take some time still. Nothing really moves quickly with Kodal in terms of news and developments. A number of people on here have traded this pattern fairly successfully and more power too them. I prefer to sit and hold personally. The danger with doing that is of course, the RNS could drop at any moment, and funding may have already been secured pending finalisation of the licence. In which case if you're out and waiting for re-entry at that point you're caught with your pants down.
On the flip side of course it could take another couple of months to get the licence, and then another couple more to secure the funding, in which case I can see us drifting down to the teens again.
All in my humble opinion of course. I'm here for the long term either way.
On a serious note, anyone who *can* attend absolutely should. It's no wonder that PI's are not taken seriously when they are outnumbered by Directors at the AGM. We all (other than our resident ladies of leisure) have day jobs and responsibilities, but it is 100% worth our time and effort to attend.
To be clear this means we can mine the Ngoualana (3.1Mt) resource using only DMS. However the other deposits WILL require the addition of a flotation circuit. IMO this is not great, but not terrible. It means we get ~3 years of mining out of Ngoualana (assuming some of the inferred becomes indicated and we use a 1.5Mtpa plant) for the £70m DMS. All the while I suspect we will continue to explore while we look to fund and build the flotation circuit. The take away from this of course is that the project will be able to provide the 6%Li0 required to be viable but we can't do away with the flotation entirely. This shouldn't really come as a surprise but it's good to have the numbers at last.