Member Info for ShipwreckSheep

It feels though like most of the new investors here also take an investment view with medium-term holding aspirations rather than just a short-term trade for 10%, it's nice to see that this company (and this board) attracts a very nice kind of sticky-hands investors, this means things will get very interesting when bigger volumes come in from institutions along the road. It's also nice to see how the board has stayed a great - and relatively clean - place of discourse where positive and negative opinions stay on the realistic side rather than the "This is bigger than Nvidia" vs "Everybody should sell sell sell" mess (& more cross-ramping than actual information) that almost every other board on LSE is, especially ones where a share price is multiple bags up YTD.

Long may it continue! (although I do miss Michael talking about cricket on here even though I have no clue about it whatsoever other than that all Wudinna resource sites are named after cricket things)

Oh wow, that went very well for you! For me it was an either/or decision given both were very similar market cap and stages, so not in EEE at all, but it seems like a very very solid project there now too (would think not that much more upside there though at 550m mcap)

Given you (and maybe others) were in EEE when it crossed that barrier, did you notice much change in volumes/momentum once it crossed 50m£ mcap? Given that IIs seem to be back in mining investments recently across the board, would think we could see more institutional flow here soon too, if the SP crosses it in the next weeks ofc.

It doesn't seem like anybody else has such inclination either Paul, if there wasn't almost only buying interest at this level, we wouldn't move 0.85p on less than 5m shares volume. Far less than 1% of shares outstanding traded today.

As nice as all of this is, part of me still cries that when I was deciding between EEE and COBR in 2022 for which one I wanna build a bigger stake in, I chose COBR because "EEE is just prospective drilling, while COBR already have an interesting resource". But who knows, over the next years, it might well still turn out to have been the better decision

As Rupert said yesterday "not at these kind of levels" haha

"Look, as a company, we have very much focused on previous placings to minimise that dilution to shareholders. We have a very supportive major shareholder base and we additionally added another major shareholder to our register earlier in the year when our share price wasn't so high. So, we have a great foundation that enables us to have a very tight register and it's in not only the board's interest but those major shareholders' interests that we minimise any dilution on future capital raises and we'll certainly be working hard to do that. But I think the benefit is, Ben, is we have two amazing assets now that we can really increase our share price with short-term news flow and I don't think we want to be raising money at these kind of levels."

My personal "base case" is one where porphyry doesn't work out, but skarn will for Manna Hill, and Boland will succeed, but without EVERYTHING going right, for instance it could be that there isn't that upside that Rupert mentioned in reducing lanthanum and cerium and that the MREC stays closer to the 18$/kg that he stated yesterday than the > 30$/kg, so I think if that comes to fruition, my base case is probably that *eventual* fair mcap for the 2 projects is several 100m£ mcap and quite possibly > 500m£, but likely below 1bn£. But while that is aligned with what David Clarke hinted at as his personal opinion in that interview that was posted here from last year (although for him that was for Boland alone, not Manna Hill too), it's important to keep in mind that there's a downside scenario very obviously, and also that we do not really know how many shares will be in issue at the time if all of this happens the way I have as base case expectations (good but not max success at Boland, good success at Blue Rose skarn, no success at Blue Rose porphyry)

GBP tbh Trombone, of course it's far in the future to realise such market caps and it's important that we all realise that it's still an exploration project that can also go wrong. But for instance if you ask ChatGPT for a valuation of a success case (I know ChatGPT is far from perfect, but probably better than I am at it, while I try to give the reasonable prompts), you get the below. Again, that is a big success scenario for Boland and a big success scenario (albeit not a max Cadia-like success scenario) for Manna Hill, so that is undoubtedly on the very very very high end of what is realistic and would require everything to go right over the next 3-5 years.

Prompt: "what could be the eventual fair market cap if both assets succeed, Boland a 500Mt ore resource with 1000ppm TREO/250ppm MREO, and Blue Rose a solid (but not Cadia-like) skarn & porphyry deposit"

Answer:

1. Boland ISR – 500 Mt @ 1000 ppm TREO, 250 ppm MREO

Tonnage math

500 Mt × 0.10% TREO = 500,000 t TREO

25% MREO bias = 125,000 t MREO, which is the value driver

Basket value (current prices, 2025)

Basket (with 25% NdPr/Dy/Tb, 75% cheap La/Ce) ≈ US$28–32/kg REO (we ran this earlier)

In situ REO value = 500 Mt × 1,000 g/t × (US$30/kg ÷ 1,000) ≈ US$15 billion gross metal value (GMV)

Payability & recoveries

ISR recoveries: say 60–70% (bench + field efficiency)

Payability uplift (if they strip La/Ce): ~80% of basket value (vs industry 70%)

So:

Realisable value = US$15b × 0.65 × 0.8 ≈ US$7.8b

NPV / EV multiple

Cost structure could be bottom quartile if ISR really works → say US$10/kg REO opex vs $30/kg basket = fat margin.

At 7.5–8% discount rate, you might capture ~30–40% of in-ground value in NPV → call it US$2.5–3.0b NPV.

Assign 0.5–0.7× NPV as fair EV at Feasibility/production-ready stage → US$1.3–2.0b (A$2–3b) attributable.

2. Blue Rose + porphyry system

Skarn scenario

Suppose they delineate 20–30 Mt @ 1.5–2% CuEq (Cu + Au credits).

That’s ~300–600k t CuEq metal in a shallow, mineable skarn.

At US$9,000/t Cu, in-ground GMV = US$2.7–5.4b.

Discount heavily for cost/strip/etc → US$0.5–1.0b NPV plausible.

Porphyry upside

If the system yields a Cadia-like monster, the upside is huge, but you said assume not Cadia-like. So let’s be modest:

A 200–400 Mt @ 0.4–0.6% CuEq porphyry is still a company-maker → 0.8–2.4 Mt CuEq metal (~US$7–20b GMV).

Even at conservative valuations, that’s another US$0.5–1.0b NPV.

So combined Manna Hill optionality = US$0.5–2.0b NPV, fair EV maybe US$0.3–1.0b (A$0.5–1.5b).

3. Barton package

A$15m hard asset, negligible in the grand scheme.

4. Sum-of-the-parts “success case”

Boland (ISR HREE): A$2–3b

Manna Hill (skarn + porphyry): A$0.5–1.5b

Barton stake: A$15m

Total eventual fair market cap (success case): A$2.5–4.5b (~£1.25–2.25b)

"Even in light of the SP increase we have seen since June"

I know what you mean EP, but then again, it's still only 40m mcap, the eventual value of Boland if it succeeds (and that's ofc still not 100%, but they have done a lot of derisking over the past years already) is very likely several 100m, potentially even over 1bn, but that does depend on rare earths development overall and price floors ex-China etc. It's very exciting to me that he said they want to grow with the emerging supply chains in US, Europe, other Asia. The MRE is key, but I have little doubt about scale at this point, so if the initial MRE is 100Mt (I think that would be a nice maiden one), pretty sure they can scale that if and when needed by a lot. The main thing that is the question with Boland is still ISR, as many times pointed out, so if we get those in-filed results before the MRE, I would not even be that surprised if those results (conditional on them being a "pure" success like the bench-scale one) lead to a bigger re-rate than the MRE, just because it's the bigger de-risking step.

Then Manna Hill. God knows, I have not that much clue about copper, but from AI it sounded like even the skarn without the porphyry could be worth an mcap of low 100m's? Anybody here a copper expert to confirm or dispute that? Would be interesting. I don't - yet - get as excited as Rupert about the porphyry and Fingers of God. That's all massive massive upside no doubt, but also far lower likelihood of success. The skarn imo with the results they already have and him saying that those alone almost are enough to publish an MRE, that's the part that currently excites me more.

Would be able to sell 500,000 shares at 4.352p and meanwhile MMs keep mid marked at 4.35, pretty absurd again

Hm, last one was cut off by LSE, this was it:

“The scale that we’re looking at at Blue Rose in particular is so significant that it’s a standalone asset that will need its own infrastructure.”

For anybody who hasn't watched it (yet), some of the quotes during the webinar from the transcript:

“Now if we look at all of the big IOCG systems in South Australia that are now all owned by BHP, they have these magneto-telluric signatures that are often referred to as the fingers of God. Now this project on its own has three of these. BHP's Olympic Dam has one, Oak Dam has one, Prominent Hill has one, Carrapateena has one.”

“In 23 years of operation at Cadia, it's effectively Australia's most profitable mine. It's got huge reserves of Copper, Gold, Silver and Moly… We have the right similarities here. Skarn mineralisation was first discovered at Cadia about 50 years ago… Now, we're going to deploy a similar exploration model here.”

“This could be the next Havieron and we're talking significant scale and we have the right geological information to suggest that this is a fertile porphyry system.”

“If we can reduce the molarity from 0.5, which is the industry standard, and reduce that down to 0.3 or 0.2, that’s a huge cost saving that will feed in very nicely into our scoping studies.”

“We’ll be producing a couple of hundred grams of mixed rare earth carbonate for prospective offtakers… and that’s how we will secure commercial agreements.”

“We are very focused on getting that cost basis down, reducing the light rare earths… taking payability from 70% up to 80–90%, which means a product worth around US$18/kg now could be over US$30/kg.”

“We’ve got some phenomenal historic drilling grades — 48m at 2.2% copper with 0.76 g/t gold from just 11m depth… we believe we can deliver a lot more of that.”

“This land package has three [Fingers of God]… we’re really confident we’ve got the right big system mineralisation structures to support large-scale discoveries.”

“We can go in and do very cost-effective shallow drilling and deliver some significant upside of this asset… we’re at a point where you could almost announce a mineral resource estimate on the existing drilling.”

“This structure is really exciting because we’re not outputting significant dilution to acquire the asset — very good structure for Cobra shareholders.”

“We have very much focused on previous placings to minimise dilution to shareholders… It’s in not only the board’s interest but also those major shareholders’ interests that we minimise any dilution on future capital raises. I don’t think we want to be raising money at these kind of levels.”

“With the additional cash coming in from the Barton deal, that will be allocated towards the Manna Hill program. We are also exploring a number of non-diluting pathways to fund Boland. A lot of that is research and development… grants, partnerships are certainly things that we’ve got our eye on and we’re working to achieve.”

“The scale that we’re looking at at Blue Rose in particular is so significant that it’

Also just found that the private company he was talking about in the webinar (that the technical team is shared with) is Hamelin Gully Pty Ltd.

Here's a presentation by Cobra's exploration manager (also the exploration manager for the private company) from early 2025 which is focused very much on Manna Hill and the geology there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbuNxwHcqeU

Video link to the webinar that doesn't require you to sign up:

https://res.cloudinary.com/investorhub/video/upload/q_auto/c_fit,h_1080,w_1920/f_mp4/v1/leaf-prod/234/videos/COBR_Sept_2025_webinar_lb5vja.mp4?_s=vp-1.11.1

He isn't a one-man band, it's just that the technical team (including Robert, the exploration manager) are shared between Cobra and the private company that Rupert mentioned (I don't have the information either which company exactly that is, it might well be the Springton Trust, as I do believe that David Clarke is also linked to the private company projects).

That would make sense in the light of the copper deal, as the technical team instead of working on 1 project for Cobra (Boland) and one for Springton (Manna Hill), would be working fully on the Cobra projects - and that would probably have worked for David as well, as in Springton (which we learnt today that he is the sole beneficiary in) it would be difficult for him to stem the exploration costs for Manna Hill, while Cobra is at a point where cash is in the coffers and further coming in (Barton deal, warrants), so if that's what happened, it was a win-win, with (a) technical team focusing fully on Cobra, (b) Cobra using cash for exploration & being able to raise funds more easily in future for it if needed, as a public company, while getting the vast majority of the project's upside, so an outsized reward for the cost, while (c) David retains decent participation in the upside through the 26% that Springton will own of the SPV & of course indirectly participating in the upside of the other 74% as a major Cobra shareholder.

I can't blame Rupert for looking excited like a kid on Christmas when he talks about Manna Hill, if that plan of drilling mostly the edges (what did he call them, folds? can't remember the technical term, but it was in the webinar) of the skarn mineralisation could already lead to an MRE for Blue Rose, then that's very very interesting, and that's just looking at the top of the iceberg, not yet the several porphyry structures he mentioned in the webinar and the Molybdenum and Gold resources that - according to his assessment at least - are also reasonable grades for the type of mineralisation and depth.

Well it did bring buying at 4.25 back in vs buying at 4.20 in the morning (and some selling too in the morning that does not look like it's the case in the afternoon), so not complete flatline.

But yeah, I'd assume that not too many managed to watch live at 11am on a Wednesday, I'm with you that it should really go on Youtube without required sign-up, generally I also still think it might be time to spend a bit on PR, an hour-long on InvestorMeetsCompany or even short one on Proactive could increase reach at a time like this - when it's all just through the internal Investor Hub on the Cobra website, it simply won't reach many that aren't invested yet. At the same time, given that most that are already here still want to increase their stake in the eventual prize, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

PaulFG, I'd say rather "everything these days could CLAIM to be the next Havieron". He's been explaining the density studies and skarn/porphyry systems they suspect quite well though, and looking at that map with all the 1Mt+ Cu deposits closeby, Manna Hill is certainly in "elephant country" as Shaun Day would have said at the time haha

But Havieron, or even more extreme, Cadia, obviously represents the massively optimistic success scenario, Manna Hill can be much much smaller than either of these and in reality we don't *need* it, as there's Boland which very likely will be a > 1 decade resource, so having the potential for upside from Manna Hill success is a luxury and imo puts Cobra into a very enviable position, hard to think of any other explorer that has 2 resources of this potential, with development not far away for at least 1 (maybe both), with a market cap of 35m£. I mean, hard to think of any other explorer that has even 1 resource of this potential, with a market cap of 35m£.

My take from the presentation is that they will be able to use processing facilities nearby, the comment on own processing facility and thinking Manna Hill could easily be big enough to justify having its own processing facility was likely to drive home what value he thinks there is in the porphyry system (which will only be explored/tested after looking for the folds of the skarn mineralisation). He did state that the geology is similar to Cadia, the most profitable Australian mine, and that this could be the upside scenario, and also stated that the porphyry system from density testing etc could be the next Havieron.

Now obviously that's not a given, but Rupert isn't usually the guy to throw around huge mine names to create hype, Cobra generally always has been cautious with these things, so it really shows how huge he truly believes the potential of Manna Hill is

Also mentioned they have their eyes on non-dilutive financing "in the near term", R&D grants, partnerships, etc. Very happy to hear that.

He said there's a railway system given the many projects around and a processing plant for Copper, Silver, Zinc, and something else I forgot. But also mentioned that they think Manna Hill will be big enough to warrant its own processing facility. Or at least that's what I understood, will hopefully have a replay on the website later

Webinar is at 11 BST

"All Barton Gold ordinary shares will be issued based on the 30-day volume weighted average price of Barton Gold's ordinary shares on ASX in the 30 days immediately prior to the date of the execution of this Transaction, save for the milestone related payments shall be based on the 30-day volume weighted average price of Barton Gold's ordinary shares on ASX in the 30 days immediately prior to the issue date."

May not be the main story about Cobra at the moment (almost certainly isn't), but given that provision above in the Barton Gold deal and the fact that the 800k A$ worth of shares allocated on Completion have been at a price of ~0.78 AUD, the 30d VWAP before execution of the deal, i.e. the 4.2m A$ worth of shares on Final Settlement will also be at a price of 0.78 AUD as per the provision above -> means that essentially 5m A$ of Barton shares are locked in at 0.78 AUD allocation price, so (rounding errors aside) 6,410,256 Barton Gold shares for Cobra from Completion and Final Settlement.

Barton since has risen close to 20% to 0.92 AUD, so those 5m A$ worth of allocated shares are already worth 5.9m A$. So already around 500k GBP worth of additional fair market cap for Cobra again from the rise in Barton shares they hold (or will be allocated at that locked-in price).