Meet our titanium neighbour!4 Feb 2016 14:42
Here is a very interesting TiO2 mining project in Engebo in Norway about mining rutile instead of ilmenite, owned by Nordic Mining ASA, Norway, a quoted company with shareprices etc. here:
http://www.netfonds.no/quotes/ppaper.php?paper=NOM.OAX click the English flag. Current market cap is around £20m, like FAM they also have other resource and projects but don’t produce anything yet.
http://www.nordicmining.com/getfile.php/Bilder/Operations/Engeb%C3%B8/Engeb%C3%B8%20Engelsk/Presentasjoner/Engeb%C3%B8%20project%20presentation.pdf
A bit dated perhaps, from 2013, with a somewhat unrealistic market prices and assumptions. E.g. they say “shortage in worldwide rutile supply” when in fact rutile mining is shutting down worldwide due to low TiO2 prices.
On page 5 of the report Nordic Mining places Engebo resources on top of all resources in the world in terms of grade with 3.77% TiO2 average grade. I wonder where FAM’s resources will be. JORC inferred resources say equivalent to 6 mill. ton pure Tio2 and with 100,000 ton / annum TiO2 mining the prod. Life estimate is 60 years.
Engebo’s capex to start the mining (deep mining) was estimated to USD 300 mill in 2013, a . This is where FAM has an advantage. No mine, crushing, dry and wet processing, only build infrastructure, some scoop up and ship.
Engebo is only 1.5 days shipping away from main buyers in UK, Belgium and Netherlands whereas FAM’s beach in Thule is 8 days sailing from the same buyers.
Here is their webpage for rutil
http://www.nordicmining.com/engebo-rutile/category317.html
With their capex for deep mining, milling and separation on site I think they will struggle in spite of closeness to market and high grade TiO2.
I look forward to the publication of the comparable data for Pituffik.