Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Good point, overtrader. Also, it clearly is not the case that POW have proved that you can’t hunt for massive sulphides using EM signatures. You absolutely can, and many deposits have been found in that way. In fact, it’s the industry standard geophysical method as far as I’m aware. As I said, it’s very hard to assess what went wrong for POW without knowing what their data was. It may be (for example) that what their campaign shows is that a conductance reading in the low thousands can be explained by salt water or graphite or certain non-sulphide rocks. But we already know that!
One thing I would say is that Ben will know what the conductance readings on Molopo were, from Kav’s due diligence on the failed Molopo transaction. So we are very well placed to learn any lessons from Molopo, even though that process is not visible to us shareholders
My thoughts are that POW never published conductance readings for Molopo, so that it is impossible for us to compare. If their conductance readings were in the 10ks of Siemens I would be worried about read across to our B1. If theirs were significantly lower, it would seem pretty irrelevant
When Rod turned up around the same time as the AA deal there was a lot of chat on this board that the two things were linked - seem to recall Max had a very strong belief that Rod had opened the door to AA even before he was appointed. Well, a very notable feature of the operational RNS today is that it makes no mention of AA at all - on the contrary, it talks about future negotiations for offtake. So… is the AA deal off? And is that why Rod is outta here? Just an idea, obviously - no hard basis
Hi, and welcome to the seemingly many newcomers! One point to have in mind, for those who don’t know, is that First Quantum provide quarterly updates to AFP, the timing of which is such that we would normally get an update from AFP approximately in the next 2-3 weeks. There is a possibility that the rainy season in Zambia will mean either that there is no update this quarter or that it is less substantial than it would otherwise be, but we will see. There is certainly a decent chance of some more positive news flow in the near term, quite apart from Namibia financing
Excellent news. You don’t half get a lot for £4m market cap here
Great post, Poppyseed. My strong feeling is that this is going to come good. I also see that bet as extremely low risk given that our forward EV is below zero assuming full implementation of the TVM sale
Terry, a comment so good you posted it twice.
At the risk of stating the obvious, close for ARCM meant the start of a revenue-free exploration period and a whole lot of waiting. For AET, close means substantial profits rolling in immediately. It’s really not very similar at all
My take:
- overall positive
- very enthusiastic and positive about HMS
- key point on HMS: by end of May we should be producing *separated* HMS products which will enable (a) confirmation of offtake partner, and (b) sales (albeit smaller volume than when the full plant is up and running).
- also positive about sale of TVM: repeated statements that if buyer were to pull out we would keep the money and the mine (ie they’re not going to pull out).
- agree with Basher that it was a bit foot-shuffly re diamonds. Reading between the lines I think Alexkor are probably a bit of a basket case / totally useless. Seems we’ve done everything we need to do and the diamond side *should* now be sorted, but it’s over to Alexkor, so…
- Very positive on future opportunities, particularly those which may come from new cornerstone shareholder
Closing of both deals 40-45p?
If you wait for revenues of 350 million a year I suspect you’ll be paying a bit more than 15p a share…
Hi Nige, yes I can see Corcel and NPC might have a back up plan for this situation - will have to see. One option, I suppose, would be for Corcel and NPC to make an offer to buy BM’s interest. Indeed, it seems not out of the question that BM might even be manoeuvring for such an offer. But we don’t have enough info to form any view on that. Has to be a case of await developments I think
Hi Corcel crew
Well-wishing former shareholder here. A quick bit on how pre-emption rights work, for anyone who doesn’t know. Corcel and Battery Metals will be shareholders in a company which holds the Mambare rights (Oro Nickel, from memory?). The articles or shareholders agreement of that company will contain pre-emption rights. These mean that, if one shareholder (Corcel or BM) proposes to sell its shares to a third party, they first have to give notice to the other shareholder and that shareholder has the option to buy the shares instead, for the same amount. So here, Corcel has presumably notified BM of an intention to sell to the NPC JV, and BM has said “no, we’ll buy them instead”. So Corcel will (a) lose its stake in Mambare, (b) not be able to complete the NPC JV on the current terms (presumably have to renegotiate), but (c) get some cash from BM. The amount of the cash is unknown and presumably not straightforward to calculate - it will likely depend on some valuation of the JV. In practice, would imagine it will have to be negotiated with BM.
This is a unilateral exercise of rights by BM. It can’t really be a good or bad deal as such because it isn’t a deal, it’s just something BM have decided to do. Whether it’s a good thing for Corcel would seem to depend on (a) how much cash (currently unknown), (b) what you thought of the NPC JV terms, and (c) whether you think PNG are ever going to give Oro Nickel a mining licence. If, like me, you are increasingly despairing of (c), it might be a good thing overall - although, as I say, it’s not something the Corcel board have done on purpose. DYOR of course
What a nice surprise that the new bill has been passed so quickly. I have a really good feeling that this is going to unlock the MDA for us in the near future. The past few months have been a story of the Mining Minister repeatedly announcing that they are about to sign and then it not happening, seemingly due to the AG. If the effect of the new bill is to take the final authority away from the AG and give it to the Mining Ministry I think we will see progress quickly
Even if the rain impedes substantial drilling, there’s a lot more to exploration - geophysics, soils, modelling. I think there will be a substantial update
Noel wrote: “ Prices don't move in a straight line - there will be up days on the way down. Those rises draw in the mugs who think the bottom has been reached, but it hasn't. The rise fizzles out and the next down leg comes along.”
Have to say, looking at the chart I disagree. Since the big fall we have seen a sequence of higher lowers and higher highs. The current trend points upwards. I find it instructive to compare PXC’s chart (pointing up since the drop) to AGL’s after it crashed a few months ago (dwindling recovery with lower highs)
Pretty good update for me:
YTD production stronger than I expected
Guidance confirms production increasing
On track for 20-22,000 bbd in the fairly near future
Great increase in reserves
More reference to M&A boosting production further
Hi all
I’ve added £5k just now. The next FQ update should be in the next 2-4 weeks and in the run up to the previous two updates the SP rose in anticipation. Also agree that news on Namibia is overdue and could come soon. I have previously stated my view that AFP is grossly undervalued and never more so than at these medium term lows. Good time to buy in my opinion
Absolutely remarkable to get two good holes for free. Most CEOs wouldn’t have achieved this. In fact, the bad ones wouldn’t even have bothered to try
Very promising update. The prostate test looks like being the company maker it promised to be when the accuracy results were announced