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Morning all,
Positive RNS this morning. Good to see that drilling at Asacha and scoping study at Rodnikova continuing as planned, plus the extra incomes should make good reading of the Q1 results next month.
Afternoon Hazbeen,
Reading the RNS again, it states that NB was looking to place shares in order to make a part payment of the outstanding £3.3 million divorce settlement. My take on this is that it he may have only been looking to offload part of his ~ 64million holding to cover whatever "part" payment he was intending to make. So if/when it happens in 12 months time, there may only be a relatively small proportion of his shares coming to market - we'll see.
Morning Hazbeen,
In my opinion NB's attempt to offload shares to pay part of a divorce settlement is not out of the ordinary, however the success or failure to place them would of course depend on what price they were trying to place at. At least he was complying with the agreed disposal arrangement, and having been unsuccessful, has now entered into a new lock-in agreement for 12 months, during which time the value of the Company and SP should improve significantly if all goes to plan. With regards to your previous question, I have had a quick look at the Company but cannot find any info yet as to the reasons for their actions, but I'll have another look when I get time.
Afternoon Hazbeen,
Hope you are keeping well in current circumstances. Markets are currently chaos, and some of my other shares are getting hammered at the moment. This is holding up well and I scraped together enough to add another 2000 at 10.475 today, a bit of a token gesture but all helps to reduce the average. Read an article today about China's recovery, which you might find interesting. With regard to financing, I still expect off-taker input, especially due to our location close to the " Belt & Road Initiative".
https://roskill.com/news/macroeconomics-chinese-metals-and-mining-activity-showing-a-rapid-recovery-from-covid-19-disruption/.
Hello hazbeen,
I'm keeping hold of mine so not affected in the short term by these market goings-on, imo good Companies will recover over time. I've tried once again to get a progress update from both the Company and its so called PR advisors but no luck to date. They weren't wrong when they admitted to being poor at customer relations, but I live in hope of a response. Keep the faith fella.
Afternoon all,
I just thought I'd say hello, having just bought in today. I'm looking forward to contributing on here when I get to know more about the Company.
Morning Hazbeen,
I'm a retired Chemical Engineer not a financial expert, but as NB acknowledged in his interview, They have not been good at investor relations to date, so he can't rely on PI sentiment towards supporting any equity raise unless it was at a low offer. For the amount of money they are looking for, I would guess that they might try for an offtake agreement of some sort, for future FeV production. However if they do come to the market, I'll be keeping funds available to participate ( if possible). My guess on timing will be by the end of this month, as continued ramp up of the pilot plant needs the electricity installed and the FeV arc furnace purchased asap.
Morning Hazbeen,
My guess on the financing call, will be before completion of the 110kv installation, to pay the remaining $ 1.5M of that and also to get the proposed electric arc furnace ordered, and to enable production of Ferrovanadium to start as soon as possible. As NB pointed out in his recent interview, because there is currently no debt or offtake commitments in place, it may well be that part of this $ 3.5M total spend is via this type of debt funding. I agree it is wise to wait and see before buying more. I have sent an email through St Brides to Far with my suggestions on improving investor relations but no reply from either yet, - no surprise, I think the Company need to quickly review their " PR facility" for a more pro-active one.
Morning Hazbeen,
You are correct in that at $5/lb Vanadium we can still make a good profit as the forecast Phase1 Balausa operating cost is stated as $2.61/lb, with stage 2 dropping to $2.22/lb ( without any co-product credits ). However to achieve the Vanadium purity required may need some plant mods., to reduce the levels of unwanted impurities such as silicates, but we already have patented technology to do this from looking at the Competent Persons report on the website. With regards to the pilot ramp up financing, on the Crux interview Nick stated that we still need $1.5 million for the 110kv connection and another $2 million for the FerroV furnace. Part/all of this may well be by Equity raise, but I think he inferred that this might come from different options -we'll wait and see. As an aside, have you or anyone else tried emailing the address on the website? I have tried several times with no success. I wanted to suggest that they put a photo gallery on the website during the ramp up/Balausa development, as one criticisms during the Crux interview was that investors Knew very little about the Company or the Country. This and a more up to date website might help get better awareness.
Morning all,
SIPPmeister, from what I remember, in the June 2018 presentation it indicated that Uis Phase 1 All-in costs were expected to be ~U$ 17000 per tonne ( tin output only). Phase 2 costs were estimated at U$ 13000 per tonne less co-product credits for Tantalite and Petalite. I have no idea how high current costs are, but the fines/slimes problems encountered will have had an effect on this I assume. As these problems are overcome, I would expect any "bits of kit" required to improve the production output will be included in the Phase 2 feasibility study.
Afternoon Time2Buy,
My point in reply to the query as to why our share price yesterday was not mirroring BMN price, was to point out that the rise in BMN SP was due in part due to their near term ability to supply Vanadium electrolyte into the forthcoming grid storage tenders across South Africa. Currently FAR are not one of the largest Vanadium producers and would have no ability to compete in near term V-electrolyte supply. Once production is fully developed ( ie stage 2 Balausa completed), then not only are we capable of being one of the largest producers of V2O5 & FerroV, but also one of the lowest ( if not the lowest) cost producers . That's why I'm invested here. In his recent Crux interview, Nick Bridgen confirmed that he did not discount being involved In electrolyte production in the future, but at the moment the priority is to get the expansion of the pilot production ramped up to 1500t V2O5 capacity per year and commission a Ferrovanadium smelter. At the same time as continuing to progress the main Balausa plant. I hope this clears things up.
Afternoon all,
L2analyst, this Company is currently a very different Vanadium producer to BMN. They are a vertically integrated miner/producer/VRFB investor, who are in position to compete in up-coming tenders for grid scale VRFB back up supply units, and are currently building a dedicated Vanadium Electrolyte plant in S.Africa. We here are just starting on our development path, so we could not expect to mirror their current SP progress, but in my opinion, Ferro-Alloy's time will come in what ever direction the BOD decide to take it.
Evening Hazbeen, you re correct that NB indicated in his Crux interview, that our priority now is the ramp up of the "Pilot production " to 1500 tons per year. However he did also point out, that during discussions with Storage Battery producers, that they indicated they required Electrolyte Vanadium pricing around $5/lb to be competitive in the developing energy storage market. He also stated that given our very low production costs (presentation on website), we would still be able to produce even at these lower levels, and would be something to be considered at a future date. For now the bigger revenues will come from Ferrovanadium, hence the inclusion of a furnace in the ramp-up.
Evening Sharesahoy, from my memory I think the original milestone for stage1 ramp-up was the end of last year/into Q1 this year. This was then deferred to Q2 ( Mining Indaba presentation on website ). I personally have no concerns about this as I'm here for the long tem hopefully. I am just pleased that "glitches" are sorted at this stage, rather than further down the line during stage 2 when we will also be commissioning the recovery of other co-products as well as the tin. I also echo Alfacomp's hope that we get some info on the co-product recoveries shortly as this would have a significant effect on the process profitability.
Morning all,
For anyone interested I have included a link to " Vanadium Miners" monthly report for January. The development of Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries ( VRFB ), will require significant quantities of Vanadium Electrolyte, which in the future we would be able to produce the required " purer" grades of powdered V2O5, using our patented Adsorption Technology. In the recent Crux interview NB indicated that the Company's main aims are to develop V2O5 and Ferrovanadium production, but that did not preclude us from entering the Battery Electrolyte market in due course. Our cost structures are low enough to make it economically possible, Happy days ahead as far as I can see.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4320150-vanadium-miners-news-for-month-of-january-2020