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The Creek are cash rich and have debt facilities. A sale is possible, but I think just increased exposure to IIs and high net worth individuals is why they have done it. I think also BEN need publicity and broker notes will help with that, to legitimise the track record and assure investors that other parties have done some due diligence on them. I don't think it's likely to be a bad thing for shareholders.
@normbeef I'm pretty confident from the historic and new drills (none JORC compliant but still valid) that there is a lot of metal in the ground and that it will be very straightforward (comparing to other projects like GGPs Havieron) to make it work. The problem is that "very straightforward" for a mining co is still not a quick job, and takes a lot of funding for a company this size.
I am just hoping that we will rerate when the market (or a J/V partner) realises what UFO are sitting on.
@normbeef something else I was speculating was that Rod made Bill aware of the difficulties even with a "simple" open pit mine - it may be the better option for EH, but still would require significant work, capex and permitting. Perhaps most critically environmental permitting, storage, haul road, extraction plant and equipment. Sending a digger and some blokes might also be surprisingly expensive even if all of the above were handled or unnecessary. Changing tack and doing more drilling to ultimately develop a fully compliant JORC indicated resource might be the way to go. Getting a more advanced company on board to J/V once we have properly proved the resource (*cough* AAM *cough*) and planned any project in the area is imo a better approach if dewatering isn't that straightforward.
It could be just another example of BBG biting off more than UFO could chew by perhaps underestimating the challenges with bringing even a simple project into production, and Rod has corrected course based on his experience with exactly these sorts of tasks. Better to focus on IOCA in the short term if EH progress isn't easy, sunk cost fallacy and all that.
My suspicion (just a guess) is that they were going to dewatering the mine but found that it is going to take a long time and because the mine has been disused, a lot of the supports (wood or steel) will have been water damaged and the mine is unsafe. To replace that to even go down and see what's there might be quite expensive, money that they don't have right now and there are insanely high grades that are better accessed from surface in open pit than from the mine. The 8000+ g/t was adjacent to the mine. So the cost benefit is pretty weak for reopening the mine right now and they need to get more droll results and revenue first.
Agreed, could be a nice lift to get some more confidence in operations, trading and storage. Hoping for a bumper Q1 23' if they can pull the trigger on their stockpiles and get the trains to ship a decent chunk of it at a higher metcoal price.
We also can't control whether the trains run on time, and our last (our 10th total) was on the 23rd October. As far as I know we haven't received any more in Oct and so far in Nov either. We have booked two more in Nov and another two in Dec. On the BEN fb page there is some great news from 6 months ago though - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/norfolk-southern-boosts-conductor-trainees-more-than-700-to-fight-off-labor-shortages-11658945205?fbclid=IwAR2fRAFfsapWiVgNNC0cG-rxBs2U7Rxdh_ktqNoVHMFtoFnfgintbhbkQG8
Looks like as suspected NS is having trouble filling existing orders nevermind oversupply bookings due to a lack of drivers, but have seriously boosted their trainee numbers so hopefully this irons itself out in the New Year as these trainees get promoted to running shipments themselves. It also appears BEN have been setting up all the non-mining activities that are required to mine (bench setting, overburden clearing, remediation as they go, expansion of underground mining, etc.) so that they can get a great start when the trains do start rolling in. It isn't ideal but it seems to be on the right track, no pun intended.
Just got to wait a few months to start watching the increases in productivity of the site I think. I would expect that a regular schedule with NS is set up latest by end of Q1 '23 and AW has said explicitly he would like to give out the dividend when FY results are due to be announced in around July time, so they will likely be able to predict the feasibility around the end of Q1 with another major variable sorted out and allowing BEN SP to be dictated only by the price of metcoal.
Thanks for the info but I still don't see a funding agreement. I expect they will be able to get the investors for it, I just don't see the funding secured right now so comparison with the funding required just shows how they won't be able to borrow against collateral or raise from easily from the market. They will need angel investors / buy-out to get there I would guess.
I also wouldn't be here if the timescales for something to happen are 2 - 3 years out. Full expectation that we will get material updates within the next couple of months. The SP has been on a slow, linear drop for over 2 years at this point, but we have seen major value generation in that time (and raises, in fairness). Rod does seem to be moving fast with IOCA, and while there are a lot of permits and such to develop, and the agreement with AAM, we seem to be getting there.
The recent surprise raise in Sept was for drilling at Brockman and Sirius Ext, with significant investigations going on at Munni Munni. I think this is the value add that Rod wants to bring to market and advertise seriously, and it could be monumental for the company to get a big JORC PGM asset to their name. Worth riding out for that I think.
I had already watched this presentation and the only thing I heard was in the Q&A: "First quarter next year, in fact I've got Sam Quinn hiding at the back there, he's the CFO. So he's promised me he'll have the funding in place first quarter next year, so we can bring him up here and he can explain ... timeline, it'll be tight but end of first quarter next year, so first half next year we expect to be funded." Sam Quinn doesn't come up in that recording.
If anyone has a timestamp for where I need to be looking or better info, please pass it along.
It's times like this when I remember the Keynes quote: "Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." I can ride this out but I'd have preferred not to with foresight. Buying in now (or in another 3 months when the SP might be half of this) would have been much more pleasant. Alas it is impossible to know the future. I think wiser investors than me usually stay out of pre-revenue junior miners and try to get in when they are starting to be cash generative. Hope that I can stay solvent longer enough to see an EH and/or Munni Munni update.
Just popping my head back in here for a second. Finally fully dipped out of this in April when the SP was 167. I took a big hit, but nothing compared to some who have kept the faith here. I have looked at this board from time to time to just see if there was any hope, and whether there was going to be any floor. NCYT are now sitting at an MCap of under half their free cash, which I thought could happen - when I was invested here I couldn't believe the level of incompetence, and I see that reflected in the sp. Glad that DA is gone - unbelievably bad. If they manage to appoint someone with some gumption and a plan then I might consider coming back. The only bunch that are worse than NCYT are the DHSC, so I have always given decent odds for them to win the lawsuits, but still don't see it happening any time soon. If it does I hope to see NCYT flush with cash, a payday for the LTHs and going to the market to buy out some complementary IP. GLA, maybe see you sometime next year.
Shame that we tanked from what looked like seller finally being out with a sudden finishing market dump, and then a quick recovery from the MBU charge over shares moment. I don't think the SP is connected at all to the fundamental value - at 280/t and 22 kT/month, which we are at currently, you are already looking at £62M revenue / year. With industry average P/E of 4, the SP should already be at 66p. Overheads and run cost have to be removed, but we are also looking at scaling up quickly to at least double, and perhaps 4x, the current output. I'm hopeful for a return to the 30 - 40p range soon in expectation of HWM and train news.
I think BEN has been the victim of it's own success - was sold down by JS in a firesale to cover a margin call (speculation, but it makes sense), and likely other people are liquidating for similar reasons as various short positions are probably being wound up and leverage in general gets tightened. BEN is held mostly by large institutions so if one wants to get out it can have this drag on the SP for a long time. However, these market mechanics don't affect the underlying business in any way. So someone could know something but equally, they might not. Not sure what there would be to know - if anyone can think of risks that BEN might be exposed to, I'd be interested to know.
My impression was that Amigo was loss making and with doorstep lending legal challenges that forecast it being materially unprofitable. So the sell down affected the company ability to raise funds and possible loan agreements. If BEN were trading at 1p it wouldn't affect their business at all.
I don't see why any company in their right minds would sell off a huge chunk, or all of a profitable company and get pennies on the dollar for it due to market forces. If they diversify their holding to other IIs in huge block sales it won't tank the SP either. But my bigger confusion is how this affects BEN on a day to day basis - if they're just mining and making profit, eventually the SP will correct upwards regardless of how many people are selling for peanuts. Is it possible that MBU / Bluestar just wind the company up, or something? I didn't think they had any control over the running of the company aside from AGMs.
I'm not sure what negative effect this will have tbh, can you explain? If the default occurs and shares are transferred, now Bluestar owns most of the company and that's it? The company will keep going as normal I would imagine.
The silver price being in the stinker is probably drawing attention off EH and the dewatering efforts in favour of ramping up the practical elements of IOCA and Hanc0ck. I wouldn't be surprised if Rod put it on hold entirely and took whatever people were working on it and put them to task on Munni Munni sampling / drills, on sorting out permits and shipping agreements, on all the hundred and one things that need to be done (and put into a plan for AAL beforehand).
I wouldn't be surprised if Rod's focus was first on iron ore just as a means to an end, but his main source of interest is the PGMs at Munni Munni and he is tasking Bill with getting together drill targets and collecting the JORC2004 resources into a mineral map for proving up the investment case. I don't know why AAL would get involved with our iron ore if it weren't for the promise of PGMs further down the road. I just don't get the impression that Hanc0ck is that tasty a proposition in the scheme of the megamines that are around for iron ore - nice to be sure, but for AAL probably not worth getting out of bed for. Our resource is 10.4 Mt inferred and they mine 60+ Mt per year. I think we're still waiting for drill results to upgrade to indicated and to expand the resource estimate from May?! Some of these results are taking their time.
Best news we could have hoped for if Artemis needed the cash. It was either the BoD hoovering them up or cratering the SP. The latter would be a lose-lose for everyone involved including Artemis as those sells would take weeks to work through at current volumes, and probably drop the SP further than 0.35.
Agreed penstock, I reckon NS not allocating us enough trains is down to having an operator shortage and switching around logistics for now, seeing as we're at an irregular number and they can't keep our train waiting around. Booking trains at random intervals must be a pain for them to organise. So if we get into a healthy surplus and they can start to shuttle that train back and forth we're looking much better, and will hopefully get a regular service from then on.
The underground are also HiVolA I thought, so a better grade commanding a better price. Metcoal increasing too. Everything is looking good for 2023 imo, BEN making a lot of progress and advancing wherever possible.