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The export ban on Cobalt from DRC has pushed the price up over US$30,000 / tonne from its lows at about US$21,000 / tonne. I think it would still need to go higher before there might be a question of starting production again but good to see it might become a possibility. Looking back they announced halt of production when it was around US$34,000.

This is from Fastmarkets last week:

"The cobalt market has been quiet and stagnant for some time as production has far outstripped demand in the last 18 months. This was the first sign of life and took nearly all parties by surprise. In the last four months of 2024, the DRC exported 68kt of cobalt as hydroxide to China for refining – a cut of supply this large will likely lead to a significant price correction in the coming months. Post-June, when the ban is supposed to lift, the potential for export quotas going forward could support cobalt hydroxide and metal prices for the remainder of 2025 and into 2026."

Yes I thought they were in a while back but wasn’t sure. I looked at their fund reports for last year and they were certainly adding again. Obviously as a copper play this time rather than PGMs.

I noticed that Premier Milton has been building a position recently. They are showing on the FT page now as holding 34.2m shares (movers tab). I’m pretty sure they weren’t listed in the previous update.

The thing to remember is that the initial drilling was all relatively shallow first phase exploration and most, if not all holes ended in mineralisation, so there’s a good chance they have just scratched the surface of something bigger. Exciting times!

“ We have taken the unusual step to release results from only part of this drill hole as we believe the results confirm the identification of polymetallic mineralisation at the A1 Target area. Silver mineralisation is now intersected in two holes 50 m apart. However, laboratory assay results for silver (and confirmation for copper and zinc) are still awaited for parts of both holes in addition to the entire lengths of a further five holes along the same drill line”

Mushima North looking very promising now!

No problem Chester!

Thanks Bluebelly, I'm sure I read that RNS multiple times and still missed the bit about guidance being reviewed! I still think it will be in the H1 financials anyway as they shouldn't be far off.

Chester, where does it say they would provide an update within 4-6 weeks? I don't see anything in the RNS about that. It was mentioned in the Roast interview that they would be running part of the capacity (presumably the 30,000 tpm mentioned in the RNS) initially and then review it in 4-6 weeks to see if they would move to 45,000 tpm of higher grade material.

I guess we will probably get an announcement as part of the H1 financials anyway, at least giving an updated guidance for the full year. The H1 numbers, based on the production figures, are not likely to be much to write home about but strengthening metals prices across the board and increased production (🤞) point to better days ahead!

Chrome still at US$260 / tonne today although SPOT prices were reported to be ticking up yesterday.

Here's the estimated PGM basket and chrome chart for anyone interested : https://tinyurl.com/yejrdm2k

PGM's still hovering around the US$1500 / oz level. If it can stay above that consistently then they might look at triggering the JV. Leon did mention that number in the past I believe.

Shuvlin, it's right there at the top of the page under JLP Share News, released at 10am today.

5 year highs? It’s not even at 12 month highs based on LME prices.

We know there’s a seller in the market suppressing the price, the only way to get the price moving is to clear that overhang… so buy some more!

It looks like Amplats buying due to increased customer demand caused the recent rise in rhodium price. Longer term auto demand is still expected to fall but certainly in the shorter term we might be able to benefit from those stockpiles.

https://www.miningweekly.com/article/rhodium-market-hits-20-month-high-after-amplats-bid-2025-03-12

I guess they are going to be limited by cathode production capacity until the second tank house at Sable has been completed. The H1 operational update said:

"The upgrade is currently in progress and is expected to be completed during Q2 FY2026." So sometime after September.

With a current cathode capacity of something like 6000-7000 tonnes / year they could be filling that before the new capacity comes online, when you add up Roan, Munkoyo and Project G. Maybe that's why they have scaled back the material trucked from Munkoyo to Sable. They were targeting 15,000 tpm late last year but that has been scaled back to 8,500 tpm in the last update.

If you listen to the Roast interview with Ricus (6th October 2024) at Munkoyo he said that the high grade material for direct haul to Sable was anything from 3-5%. The 'waste' pile for leaching was 0.5-1.0 % copper.

Not that it makes it any less relevant but Midnight Sun have cancelled their JV with KoBold and decided to go it alone on their project. I don't know if they looked at the Arc JV and decided to play hard ball with KoBold for a better deal or if they genuinely want to progress it themselves. They have discovered high grade oxides and are looking to do a deal with FQM to leach them. FQM are producing large amounts of sulphuric acid from smelting at Kansanshi and Midnight Sun have the advantage of their finds being close to Kansanshi, so they can neutralise the acid by leaching oxide copper. It's a pity there's no smelter at Sentinel so we could do the same thing with the Cheyeza oxides!

I'm assuming with those numbers that the PGM split in the material they are stockpiling is similar to that which they have already been processing... which is not necessarily the case. I did have a look at data thats available for mines very close to Thutse and they have a similar spilt to what's been in the research notes for Jubilee, so hopefully Thutse is the same!

I'm sure it's no coincidence that the rhodium price has increased with the news of Trumps tariffs. The vast majority of rhodium is used by the auto industry so potentially they are stocking up now in anticipation of higher costs. The question is how high will it go and will it affect the longer term price? If it pushes up towards US$6,000 / ounce (and stays there) then the overall basket would be in the ballpark of what they suggested for activating the JV with Northam.

Maybe wishful thinking PB! Anyway it's nice to see the SP making a move upwards whoever is responsible.

Is someone building a position I wonder?, a lot of buying at 1.5 but they are holding the price.

At the moment it's just about exploration. That whole license has never been drilled before so they have theories but nothing definitive to go on. This first hole will provide a massive amount of information about the geology and hopefully help them refine their models to target areas where mineralisation could be shallower. The first step is to try and establish if the mineralisation extends that far to the South West. Hopefully they are able to do that before they have to stop drilling.

Of course a deep mine would be expensive to build but most of the shallower deposits have already been found so there's no option but to start looking deeper in order to meet demand. If they did find something significant then I don't think Tertiary would be involved for long anyway.

To be honest I wouldn’t mind a bit of style to go with the substance!

Nice to see the SP ticking up a bit, I’m sure many were expecting the usual raise before the AGM but the last raise was bigger than normal so should (in theory) hold us over until later in the year, giving time for the Zambia projects to play out a bit. Drill results from Mukai should be on the way before long.

KoBold should reach the target oreshale any time between now and the next few weeks so that could be interesting. The fact that there’s folding in the area they are drilling is quite exciting to me because folding / faulting means potential traps for mineralisation. I’ll be interested to see where they choose to drill the next one.

I also think there’s a good chance of at least one more JV. The discovery of silver at Mushima North is bound to generate interest and the Mupala license, bordering the Anglo / Arc JV, and just a couple of km from where Anglo were drilling is in a very strategic location.

The more they can offload to JV’s the better as it reduces the cash burn significantly and could even generate revenue if they play it right. The Mukai JV involves staged payments from FQM but nothing significant until further down road.