Adam Davidson, CEO of Trident Royalties, discusses offtake milestones and catalysts to boost FY24. Watch the video here.
Botswana features highly (well, lowly!) in the investment risk map:
https://advisor.visualcapitalist.com/risk-map/
Nice to get a value on the July stone.
Even better was the final sentence of the RNS: “Now that we are operating in pure Kimberlite again following the development of KV Main we expect an increasing incidence of higher value diamonds."
Bring it on!
TBTT - In order:
1) not sure - good question!
2) yes and no - not directly but it’s quite well placed geographically to be useful should Maibwe come to fruition
3) the first Petra payment isn’t due till August 31 next year - which doesn’t mean they won’t raise a bit more cash before too long, I suppose - the last raise was only £250k, but then again cash burn will presumably have been minimal the past few months.
Also.... I think I’m right in saying that the bulk processing plant is probably one of the only ones of its kind in Southern Africa. Isolated in the middle of the Kalahari it may be, but Handy Harry for Sunland and (dare I say it) Maibwe!
Castaway, Totally agree. Except for one point - it’s $300k over 2 years (startibg August 2021 not $450k. But in fairness that’s an irrelevance in the context of the fact that Petra will have spent lierally tens of millions on kit and data collecting, amd the value of both data and especially the bulk processing plant to BOD is in turn actually multiplied many times by its potential use in developing Sunland and (hopefully soon!) Maibwe both of which are geographically virtually next-door. The myopic market has missed this one!
From the depths of my files (I'll re-read it properly later!):
https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/JamesAHCampbell1/11-ikc-geology-of-kx36-kimberlite-central-botswana
Great RNS - Petra's Botswana asset, on which they must surely have spent tens of millions, acquired for $300k + 5% royalty - and with payment deferred!
Previous (2106) historic SAMREC indicated resource 17.9m tonnes at 35cpht. "Modelling these grade estimates suggests overall grades between 57cpht and 76 cpht. Estimated diamond value from the LDD is $65/ct with an upside range of $97-107/ct..."
Ah Fantasy! I had a small wager with myself that you'd be first out of the traps to spout sour grapes about the extension, and I won! Anyway, firstly, warrants are not 'free' they have to be paid for, in this case 0.5p! Secondly, they were issued to a few good folk who effectively took a huge risk and rescued the company which was on its knees in 2016. Thirdly, (if ever) exercised they bring a nice little £2m into the company coffers. So there. Oh and fourthly I don't recall you sticking your hand in your pocket back in 2016...
Anyway at last and within a month we will see the commencement of mining of a large polymetallic mine. That being what we originally stumped up the loot for back in 2016 (no diamonds in those days remember). Yes it's taken a lot longer than we thought at the time, cost a lot more and it's been a tortuous route, but it's there now. The first sniff of real live revenues starting to flow and the market's view and valuation will completely change. Like a few people here I have held lots of VAST shares (and warrants) for several years now, and freely admit have traded around the edges of the core holding and I've contributed to most of the hat-shakings. It hasn't been an easy ride, but AIM rarely is. On the whole Vast has been pretty good for me and I'm confident that, like Castaway and a few other good loyal lths, it'll make us lots of money (dare I say as Castaway said earlier, 'again'...). Feel free to criticise and deramp all you like, Fantasy, but I believe the tide really has turned now, so good luck with that!
All that said, I still can't believe it's been four years!
Echo2 I think you are probably thinking along the right lines. It does rather depend on size and commerciality of whatever they have found and will find going forwards along the Mars/Thorny River/Klipspringer properties. It’s what they did with AK6 in Botswana after all and there are plenty of diamond miners on the lookout for new ‘oven-ready’ mines (as opposed to prospects). They do have plenty else going on, remember - Kalahari, Sunland, maybe Maibwe and then there’s the Zimbabwe ‘unknown’ which could prove very interesting. Then again maybe this time if circumstances are right they could mine it perhaps with a partner, JC has many friends in the business who I’m sure would be happy to jv. Either way it’s very exciting times.
Re placing, well it’s always a possibility of course, but in the absence of a big project-led requirement it’s unlikely to be big, and they’ve already said they have the wherewithall to do the next phase of Mars/TR with what they already have in the coffers - hopefully re-starting any day now. It’d be nice if they rns’d that next week!
Hi Stuart. Definitely wasn't a dividend - not yet anyway! Must be a fee of some sort though IG don't charge in that fashion as far as I am aware - best to check with IG.
Hi Pecten yes that’s true. I have a few in there myself and so do a couple of other people I know of all of whom are LTHs amd unlilely to sell at this stage. That said a bit of liquidity could actually be positive all things considered.
Great podcast by JC today well worth a watch!
Pecten - answered your own question yes - but the article you posted is significant too - just as interesting IMO is the shenanigans between Southern Era and the sudden appearance of 'historical heirs to the property' - and of course DeBeers (who having previously passed over the opportunity - bought them out and ended up JV'ing M1 with Southern Era). What with Southern Era having already nicked quite a few key DB diamond guys for M1 and then the DeBeers bullying their way back in, the relationship must have been 'interesting' to say the least, but the partners' access to data will have been significant. Guess who was Nicky Oppenheimer's personal assistant at DeBeers at that time...
JSC Thanks for posting that I hadn’t seen it before. Published just as M1 was coming on stream in 1998 by the looks of it. The rest is history...!
Who cares? Placings have generally been small, for specific project purposes and mostly happily taken up by core sharehders. With tiny overheads and good cost outlay control it can hardly be accused of being a ‘lifestyle” share - unlike so many others. In amy case, they have already stated that they have funds for the next stage of drilling at Mars/TR amd if they did need a few quid to move Mars/TR on to a further stage or get on with some Botswanan or Zimbabwean activities (say), I doubt there’d be any shortage of takers.
Not sure if links to tweets are allowed on here but it's very interesting to see the latest photo (the 'collage') of the Mars project on BOD's twitter page. It repeats the colourful stones already posted but centre right is a new one - a bowl in which there is an orange gem amongst the other diamonds. THAT is extremely significant and encouraging!
Hi Pecten - i suspect that the relatively small size of the sample means that commenting on colour/clarity might be a bit premature at this stage - especially given JC's generally cautious nature (I'd personally prefer to hear it from the results of the next stage when it will be much more conclusive). Roll on stage 2 lockdown in RSA so they can get back on the case! (I gather that should be pretty soon now).
Hi Clockman I don't profess to be any sort of diamond expert but I have done quite a bit of research etc, and in my view this news is a very significant positive step. Although it was only a relatively small sample size but even from the grades are high compared to other kimberlites and sufficient to justify moving on to the next phase (which I gather are funded). It also adds to the whole bigger picture of the Klipspringer-Thorny-Mars 'dyke belt' which is starting to look potentially huge. Also, South African lockdown is gradually easing so they should be able to get back up there before long now.
I took some in the placing. Bought some more yesterday. Some more again today. And I plan to buy some more tomorrow. Whatever the negative background noise re AP the huge reality of the assets will out - and soon now. Just my view...
Not sure where you get the 'additional funds will probably be needed' in the latest results rns - they did not say that - they actually said that COVID brings uncertainty but they were well placed because operations and finances are flexible - and overheads are in any case minimal, bulk sampling at M8 is being done/paid for by the contractor etc etc likewise the sifting of gravels at M1. In one of his podcasts I think James C stated that existing drilling project cashflow requirements are covered (don't know if that includes the Sunland proposed drill later this year to be fair, perhaps not).
In any case, even if they did decide to place for, say, Sunland, the amounts likely to be needed/raised are likely to be rather small (like last time), and in context the prospect of good RNS or 2 gives far more upside potential short term IMO.
JSCapper - that's right though I believe (?) the latest social media images are from material removed from the newly found pipe/dyke at M8 which is currently being bulk-sampled, and forms an extension of the original (M1) pipe - which was of course historically huge. The old stockpiles at M1 are a separate project currently being sifted by a contractor (and no longer subject to lockdown restrictions as he is local, I gather).