RE: so to sum it up30 Dec 2017 13:32
last one..
Executive chairman Brian McMaster is more than pleased with that outcome, but the real value, he says, still lies down the tracks.
Jangada’s key asset is the Pedra Branca platinum group metals project in Brazil, formerly owned by Anglo Platinum, and already boasting a resource of just under 1 mln ounces of platinum group metals and gold.
“The strength of this project is its provenance,” says McMaster. “We not only own the land and the licenses, we own all the work. And we expect to have a prefeasibility study done by the end of the year.”
There are two things to say about that. The first is that this is clearly not an exploration play, but a development play. The platinum is there, it’s in JORC resource, and the work is solid.
“It’s a platform for production,” says McMaster. “We are planning for 30,000 ounces per year.
The second thing to say is that platinum group metals projects outside South Africa and Zimbabwe are so rare as to be highly noteworthy. Pedra Branca may be small at this stage, but because it will be mined from an open pit it will likely be lower cost than larger South African peers, and by some considerable margin.
Or to put it in even starker terms: this platinum group metals mine is likely to make a profit, where most others in the world do not.
An early indication of how much profit the mine will make will be evident when the company releases a scoping study in a couple of months.
The numbers from that ought to provide comfort ahead of the full pre-feasibility work, which will be done by the end of the year.
What happens after that is an open question. There is, of course, the option of taking the project on to a bankable study. But McMaster isn’t sure that will be necessary.
Estimates from London broker Beaufort put the likely capital expenditure to get the mine built at US$30 mln, and McMaster is an experienced financier, having built up and sold mining companies across the world.
“We’ve got a gold project in Mongolia that’s not as advanced as Pedra Branca, but that’s getting finance,” he says. “I’m not sure we’ll need to go to fully BFS here.”
In addition to the pre-feasibility modelling, lenders and equity investors will be able to draw comfort from the 12 years of data on show from Anglo Platinum, and the US$35 mln that’s already been spent on the project.
Anglo Platinum were ultimately after bigger fish, but that needn’t bother Jangada.
“We can upgrade through exploration,” says McMaster. “But that’s not our focus.”
Instead, what we’re looking at here is a small, highly cash generative mining operation that could be moving towards a development decision as early as next year, and which is likely to be immune from any downside in the platinum price.
On the other hand, if platinum moves the ot