Member Info for Jager15

It's ironic that SOP prices have gone through the roof after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and are now +US$1000/tn. SO4 would be printing money like crazy right now....if only the plant had worked. So close, but no cigar.

Tradehobbs, there was no production. That was the problem, they need A$100m to fix the ponds and the plant, and no one was willing to front up with that sort of cash when there are other potash projects to invest in.

In short, the best option now is the receivers sell the plant to one of the other potash hopefuls, but even they are struggling to raise cash due to this mess. Australian Potash (ASX:APC) is perhaps the most logical buyer geographically, but they've been struggling for 12 months to raise the funds for their own project, and would have to weight buying a plant that doesn't work vs building their own and hoping it does work.

At the end of the day, the plant will probably get sold for cents in the dollar, lenders will have to take a haircut and shareholders will get nothing (unless they are successful with a class action against the Directors).

More like Thursday bad news. Request for further suspension on the ASX until 27 Sep and "sfa" about any of the other questions such as the CEO, production of SoP or future financing.

Ken, I don't think KMR is for sale at any price - I think MC made that clear when ILU tried to buy the business. It might be a public company, but in reality its effectively run as a private company to suit the whims of MC - it's been his passion for +25 years and he won't let it go lightly.

Sales are the easy bit in today's market. Let's just see them produce something first. Only 5 more days until the current ASX extension runs out....I'm assuming we'll see a request for a further extension given there's been virtually no news in recent weeks, but then what?

Iluka spent 10 years and millions of dollars trying to get their Sri Lankan project off the ground, but ultimately its never been developed because they couldn't get around the corruption.

"As foreshadowed in the March Quarterly Review, Iluka’s exploration lease (EL) covering the PQ Resource (approximately 333Mt) was due to expire in September 2020. As Iluka was not in a position to lodge an application to convert the EL to an Industrial Mining License due to outstanding key approvals, the EL has expired. The write down of the PQ Resource will be reflected in Iluka’s 2020 Ore Reserves and Mineral Resources Statement. The carrying value of Iluka’s Sri Lankan tenements is $21.2 million, as at September2020."

Eamonn Keenan was Kenmare's Group General Manager, Sales and Marketing and was a long term employee of the company. Sadly, he passed away last month after a short illness.

https://rip.ie/death-notice/eamonn-keenan-glasnevin-dublin/400804

I thought the company would have recognised his passing given his significant contribution to the business over a long period. However there is nothing I can find on their website, so thought I'd post my condolences here.

Interesting.....its disastrous. Zircon sales plummeted from 108kt in Q3 last year to 51kt in Q3 this year. By my calcs you have to go back to 2012 to find a worst year of YTD sales. You can blame some of it on Trump and Brexit, but I think there are other underlying issues.

Just for those who bang on here about how much money has been invested in KMR (you know who you are), here's a sobering little story from down under. Last week, MZI's Keysbrook mineral sands mine was sold for A$32m after the lenders placed MZI in administration after declining to further support the project.

https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20190628/pdf/4466pr0vtrmtcg.pdf

This is not an insignificant operation....last year they produced ~25kt of zircon concentrate, ~25kt of 70% leucoxene and ~25kt of 88% Leucoxene. Revenue was about $43m pa.

RMB Bank had lent $61.5 Million of debt to MZI. RCF, a private investment fund, invested more than $150 million in MZI. Back in September last year, MZI had an enterprise value of +$180million, but just 9 months later it was effectively sold for 15c in the $.

and therefore they will get ZERO $ from the sale of the Keysbrook mine. They lost 100% of their investment, it is beyond stupid and they deserve it. Hopefully, no more serious investors would trust them with their money.

The

I haven't been here for a while, but I see its still the usual rubbish interspersed with the odd interesting fact.

Sticking to the facts, I see in the last month ILU has risen from A$8.50 to $10.20 (20%). Most of the brokers reports I've read attribute this to improving TiO2 market conditions. Sounds good (no ramping required !).

Why then has KMR fallen from 2.02 to 1.82 (-10%) ??? Was the liquidity any different 30 days ago ?

Buried in the detail was news that ILU will holding its zircon reference price flat for Q2 and Q3. That means its zircon price will be unchanged for 12 months from Q4, 2018 to Q3, 2019. Does this indicate that the zircon market has peaked ?

There is no doubt the sector has lost its shine over the last 3 - 4 months (though arguably KMR's share price issue pre-dates that by a long way). This time last year, market players were talking about zircon potentially hitting $2000/tn in 2019 and rutile hitting $1,500/tn. Instead, the trade wars have taken their toll, demand is down and prices have flattened. For the most part, H1, 2019 price will only equal H2, 2018 prices. While the producers will say FY 2019 prices will be higher than FY 2018 prices, that's only because prices came of a low base in H1, 2018. I think the funds got a bit carried away with themselves and their NPV models had unrealistic future prices, so the lower valuations we're were seeing today are the result of a reality check with flat pricing.

I think we are where we for the next six months with similar prices/revenue & profits. The interesting thing is then what will happen in H2, 2019 ? Trade wars, impeachment, who knows what else. At this stage the Z & Ti markets look like they will be short in 2020 (with new projects falling behind their timelines), but it all depends on demand and the global economy. If your expecting 2.50 by March or 4.00 by the end of the year I think your going to be disappointed.

Nope, I think seeing the share price below 2.00 "maintains the negative atmosphere that helps keep us in the manner to which we have become accustomed". Peace1 has nothing to do with it !

I agree MC has overstayed his welcome, but it has to be remembered that he created the company, and as such it is run more like family business than a true corporate. MC ran the business for 15 years before the first tonne of ore was mined.

"For Carvill, it all started when he decided that moving around Africa on different hospital development projects wasn't something for the long term. While rewarding at the time, he felt he needed to put his mechanical engineering skills to another use.

So, an MBA and a thesis on setting up an exploration company behind him, he returned to Ireland where Tara Mines had just been sold, leaving several businessmen, including his father Charles, with some money to spare.

Before long this was put to use in the purchase of Kenmare Oil, a dormant company that was quickly sold on and the proceeds used to create Kenmare Resources."

He's not going anywhere unless they carry him out in a box.

I'm still not convinced about Alba and the re-rating was long overdue.Nevertheless, there are plenty of mines operating in remote locations in the world that can only operate or ship on a seasonal basis. Some of the diamond mines in Siberia come to mind.

A more comparable example is the Red Dog mine in Alaska. It is the worlds largest zinc mine, accounting for 10% of global production, but only has a 100-day a year shipping season during the summer months. The rest of the year it is iced in, but the market has adapted to the seasonality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dog_mine

If they go down the HMC route, there is massive processing capacity in China. Trust is not an issue....the Chinese will buy the HMC outright just like they do now from most of the Australian producers (Iluka, Tronox and Bemax all sell significant volumes of HMC into China). It's a much easier option than spending hundreds of millions on an MSP.

Geez you spout some cr@p Uncle Buck. Bruce Griffin wasn't even working for Billions in 2015, he was still at TZMI.

http://www.lomonbillions.global/appointment-of-mr-bruce-griffin/

Keep up at the back of the class !

Another box ticked for Sheffield with Thunderbird being Granted Federal Environmental Approval this week.

http://www.sheffieldresources.com.au/irm/PDF/3093_0/ThunderbirdGrantedFederalEnvironmentalApproval

The project is now well and truly on track to start production in 2020. Their share price has jumped 50% in the last 3 months and the company now has a market cap of A$260m.

Meanwwhile, KMR is still languishing.....

Skid, ILU's reference price rises to US$1,580/tn on the 1st October. This was announced in their half yearly results presentation a month ago. In addition,Tronox, Tizir and others have been at +$1,650 since the 1st July, so the likelihood this won't be accepted is low.

Just to clarify, the comments on price projections came from a mix of European, Indian and Chinese zircon buyers at the conference, not from TZMI. TZMI did not provide a price forecast in their presentation, but I quoted TZMI's comments to provide a context to the pricing.

Sorry, not sure what happened to the formating of my message, but it obviously didn't like the quotation marks !

Skid, my comments relate to feedback from the ZIA Conference last week in Thailand. TZMI's summary was:<br /><br />- "Current inventory can meet short term deficits"(hence market expectations of flattish prices over the next 6 - 12 months)<br />- "Declining supply from existing operations likely to result in less than 1m tns pa of production by 2022 (down from 1.2m tns pa currently, so increasing tightness expected )<br />- "Potential for a supply deficit of 350,000 tns in 2022 without new sources of supply"<br />- "History shows that new supply arrives later than expected by project developers"<br /><br />With respect to DR / Iluka, if you compare sand prices vs opacifier prices at this time, it wasn't Iluka that was leading the market as many people thought, it was actually the large millers like Bitossi and Endeka (TZMI reported European opacifier prices of +$3,000/tn in Q1, 2012).<br /><br />