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The primary target was Nickel, & to a lesser extend copper & PGMs.
Botswana has multiple exploration licences so if a licence is for diamonds, it doesn't count for metals. We don't know who (if anyone) held the metal exploration licences. De Beers wouldn't get out of bed for trace gold.
I'm not seeing much evidence of ramping on the boards or twitter because as you point out KAV is 3:0 down. KAV is vastly different from 2018 to early 2023. Mike Foster (geologist) put the portfolio & hypotheses together grossly underestimating the geological risks. Yes Turney was the wrong person, too inexperienced to realise he held a poor set of cards.
In 2023/24, KAV has parked the entire Foster portfolio.
In the KCB Dave Catteral, the leading geological expert has focussed attention on two potential mineral systems in between ground held by Rio & Sandfire (operating mine).
In Zimbabwe KAV swapped a chunk of geological risk for country risk with a portfolio largely put together by Steve Smith, another regional expert. The strategy is;
Identifying gold resources > 500koz, Nara estimates are 500-2,600koz
Small scale production which has already begun, positive cashflow to fund exploration.
Large scale bulk mining, probably 3-4 years time.
CEO has moved to Zimbabwe which is really important.
I don't understand how a prospective (ex) investor like Swako can accentuate the negative for several years and then claim he might invest depending on upcoming drill results. Sure a lot of investors would like to hear his buy side case (without ramping of course).
Facts:
KSZ targeted nickel
De Beers had a diamond prospecting licence so weren’t interested in gold.
KAV have effectively shelved Ditau.
Tight focus on KCB Karakubis, Zim exploration and minor Au production.
52 % shareholder so BT will be held to account.
It is malicious when you don’t have a holding and simply trash.
Its equally true there's a hardcore group of 5 accounts (most likely just one or two people) dedicated to spreading rumour & misinformation on KAV. LSE does moderate when prompted.
Fair value is currently 1-1.2p so upside of 50%. That's before the string of value inflection points from news expected over the next 6 months. Inevitably money flows in/out of small stocks driven by news or impending news. Some investors like to buy the news, others will sell into it.
I'm not overly concerned by Ria20 because the stock needs volume & interest.
Cox sold his KAV shares a year back (at a loss) and jumped into MATD (which quickly tanked). Placing isn't due for 6 months and when it does will be taken up privately by Purebond & Directors so no massive discount & no warrants. The negative comments are being co-ordinated.....
In the mean time should have drill results from Hillside, drilling from KCB Karakubis (risky but game changer if make a discovery), drill results from Nara (target range is 500k-2.6m oz), a second round of drilling at Hillside, doubling production at Hillside, work on Nara tailings. There's country risk and geological risks to factor into any investment so DYOR.
A large seller has been evident for the last 3-4 months & they're prepared to sell down to 0.6p. either someone destressed or they got the shares very cheaply, my bet is the old founder Foster or perhaps shares given to suppliers in leu of payment. You wonder why they don't hold off 3-4 months and then sell into a bounce. No matter, PIs can use this period to accumulate until there's either decisive news or the seller is gone.
I suspect we'll hear a lot more about Karakubis in the next two weeks. The licences are in between Rio (Namibia) to the west and the Sandfire Motheo copper mine to the east. The Kalahari Copper Belt (KCB) is a district copper region with at least two +$bn mines plus others in the pipeline. What they're looking for is a D'Kar/Ngwako Pan contact 200-300m deep, typically anticline folds. Its not easy because much of Botswana has a thick sand cover so there's very few physical signs at surface. Last year Kavango bought ENRG's neighbouring licences in a forced sale to form a very large strategic block, ENRG had drilled 5,000m in other parts of the licence areas without success, more recently geophysics identified 3 dome structures & ENRG were ahead of KAV in their development although KAV now think they've found similar structures on their original licences. Kavango are now using the regional expert Dave Catterall, important because he's focussed efforts away from more developed licences to the new Karakubis/ENRG area so I'm hoping KAV will share some of the new geophysics in the next few weeks.
Note the operating mines grades are typically 2% Cu & 15g/t Ag but sometimes as high as 6% Cu in places.
New video 14 minutes long and well worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPtYNjVyeVg
This is low cost mining, oxide which is easy to process, no expensive mines, very little automation, very cheap labour. Profit will easily be $1,000/oz. Yes its small scale even with the third stamp mill but its about developing a mining business.
There's a lot of news flow to come over the next few months:
Nara drilling
Hillside option decision (KAV has already said yes)
Karakubis geophysics and drill targets
Karakubis drilling campaign
Hillside assays
Nara assays
Some decent good news and KAV re-rates.
RNS out and 2 dumps at Nara, represents c$6m of free cash flow perhaps more, this is low lying fruit as no actual mining. The point about the option exercise date is true although they could exercise earlier but Nara is big c1moz target & lots of drilling required.
Legalwolf: in mid Dec BT mentions two tailings dumps in a Q&A although he's only mentioned Nara by name. The underlying issue is Nara is a 2 year option (c17 months left) so it would be surprising if KAV starts production before the option exercise and as of yet KAV has not started drilling (anytime next couple of weeks). I don't recall talk about Hillside tailings but it would seem the most likely because KAV have stated their intention to exercise the option, note expiry was 25th(?) Jan but they agreed to extend 3 months due to a new capital gains tax. My only request is the tailings have low capital requirements and a fast payback. I'm expecting KAV to list its shares on the Vic Falls Stock Exchange at some point to get a concession on gold sales as there's a rule which says > c3000oz then company gets 75% USD & 25% ZWL.
No idea what production is feasible without megabuck investment, perhaps $1m required per 1000 oz??? In the latest interview BT talks about the ZIM operation being net profitable which is probably implying $2-3m profit from tailings.
Re PL082: the underlying issue was a failure of geophysics to recognise syncline & anticline when the latter was more associated with mineralisation. It was pretty unforgivable.
Karakubis has recognisable dome structures ie anticlines similar to Sandfires mine. Still lots of geological risk but they are looking in the right area.
Near term cash generation will be modest $1-2m but it all adds up and contributes towards exploration. CEO is now Zim based & that’s the real focus for KAV.
If they find commercial grades at Karakubis KCB when drilling starts in 1-2 months then it has the potential to be very large but let’s not kid ourselves there is risk and even the likes of Sandfire have struggled at times, in KAVs favour is the regions expert Dave Catteral is leading the exploration.