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Yes, a bit of a disappointing day. I had hoped with the fact that the rk finance loan is now available to be drawn down, meaning that they are happy other funding conditions have been met, Fridays momentum may have carried on.
I guess people are waiting for solid news and playing the range while we wait
Or are they still conditional, but the conditions have been met?
The rk finance been good to go, I believe we have already drawn down the first instalment of $25 million. Is that correct?
Yes the clarification from the question at the end about the type of material we are using was interesting. So all those comments from Joe Lowry years ago calling it “play doh” are completely unfounded (I think even he has come around to be fair).
A “Lithium Pegmatite” is what we are mining, it doesn't clog when wet like the china clays, and its easy to dig out the ground process. From pit to Asia as a 99.9% pure compound in three weeks. Its got me sold!
Now we just need a nice juicy rns confirming he has sold it to the finance institutes and we are on our way.
Yes Tomcat, I have watched it a couple of times now. There is no earth shattering news in there obviously, as that would have to rns’d, which is kind of what I was getting at.
But I agree that there was a lot of interesting comments about how things are progressing. Details on just how much LCE we have been producing (which I think you have been discussing over on kdnc), the very high grades we have been making and the 100 year mine life expansion.
While we new this was all going on, it is very nice to here it from the ceo direct.
Was there any info that struck you as interesting?
Somebody didnt want to be out of this over the weekend. OMG. Did I just say that out loud. ?????
Not sure they are dragging their feet (well maybe a bit! Secker time and all that). The Morgan Stanley oversupply report did a huge amount of damage, but I do believe it will work in our favour.
The report could not have been timed worse, coupled with our brokers not doing a good enough job would have meant that we would have had to give far too much of the company away.
Now all those deals have been put to one side, they have basically had to start again (hence citi bank acting as our broker this time).
If it has affected our project, then it will have affected others.
Now after watching the presentation, it is fact that we have a genuine offtake agreement, an incredibly pure product, and we are very advanced compared to most other Juniors.
The oversupply fears are now Undersupply fears, and when our mine is operational, we will be selling into an incredibly constrained supply chain. I think we will be able to command a much higher price than $11,0000 a tonne (remember Hanwa are paying market prices), and that shouod more than make up for any lost time.
Absolutely add. I did know this, as we all read the rns when it came out. But you tend to forget details, as it was a long time ago. It is nice to have it re-confirmed straight from the horses mouth so to speak.
There were two things of interest to me, regarding the offtake agreement. I posted a podcast over the weekend of Joe Lowry interviewing Simon Moores of benchmarki minerals.
They got onto the subject of offtake agreements. Or more to the point the lack of clarity around them. Most juniors have had to accept the best agreement they can get are letters of intent, or mou’s, with little detail on amounts and sale price.
I like the fact that Hanwa have agreed to take full production, and are paying market price with NO discounts. And that they are paying us once the product is loaded onto the ship, not when they receive it.
Also that we have been working with cathode manufactures to produce a battery grade compound 99.9% pure. And for $4000 a tonne.
Not only that but did he say 3 weeks from scooping the feedstock out the ground and the battery manufacturers taking delivery?
No ramp intended, but if anybody can show me another mine or more importantly producer that can do that, then i would really like to know. Oh and a company that is valued as low as ours. I dont think the market fully appreciates what we have.
Did I mention scaleable? Increasing the mone life to an area capable of supporting 100 years suggests to me we will not be stopping at 35,000 tonnes a year
Did you just say that you highly doubt Bcn will ever produce lithium? Agree about the timescales, we are a year behind schedule as it is, but never getting to production ? Ca you expand on that statement? Or do you believe that this will just all fold!
3rd go at cracking 30 imminent? Any chartists out there who know about these things? The share price seems to be following a nice steady uptrend line, with higher highs and lower lows.
Lets see what tomorrow brings.
“You should market for Bacanora”.If we did have the lady who was hosting the presentation selling this mine to investors, the mine would be built by now!
Thought the presentation was good, nothing we didn't know but he did hammer home the fact we are a low (lowest) cost producer, the grade is battery, and has been improved and modified as battery manufacturers have asked for it.
He also mentioned been in talks with another strategic partner.
Its all looking very good.
https://twitter.com/vivasvk7/status/1125829510400827392
Sorry. That is the link, the other wont work because it should have read I suggest, but the hyperlink picked up the I.
https://twitter.com/vivasvk7/status/1125829510400827392I suggest anybody invested in any lithium Junior follow benchmarks minerals on twitter. They are putting some great info up at the moment, currently about American Senators wanting to secure battery mineral supplies. Vivas Kumar is ex tesla and now works with them. This tweet sums up the state of the battery supply chain at the moment. A play on the proverb, “when you are thirsty, it’s too late to start digging a well”. Which is where the likes of even Tesla are finding themselves at the moment. And I say even Tesla, because they have at least being proactively trying to get organised. Think about VW, who are just starting out. How are they going to secure their supplies?Jaguar are restricted on the amount if i paces they can make, because of battery shortages. I have a feeling some silly money is going to start sloshing around the sector soon.
Yes, that is a good point addicknt. In the podcast it was a sweeping statement of the state of the whole junior lithium market.
They didn’t go into detail about juniors who have actually got their off takers to invest in the company. That fact alone says to me that Bcn out shines other potential players.
They also talked about “what is lithium carbonate”. As most ceo’s talk about producing it, without actually saying what grade they are producing, as it is actually “lithium carbonate equivalent”, which comes in many grades formulas.
The fact that our pilot plant has actually produced our finished product, and that this has been tested and verified as a saleable product again speaks volumes about bcn.
So come on Mr Secker! Let the world know what we have and get some money raised.
Its a great board to visit to get a good insight into the world of future energy. I would hardly call it dull, or irrelevant.
It remains to be seen if the information posted will effect kdnc share price over the longer period. This company on paper has got its fingers in all the right places, so it is all relevant. The investments have been made, it really is down to the bod to implement their knowledge and expertise in the mining sector to realise those investments.
After doing these sums, I dont get nervous about dilution. I get nervous that the company will be sold for a pound a share (£133 millionish). Or not even one years full profit.
Bring on the dilution, get this plant up and running, and get some money coming in. The company can do a share purchase scheme in a few years to bring the share price back up!
Any thoughts on my figures would be greatly appreciated.
Has anybody had a listen to the podcast?
There were two really interesting points that I thought Simon Moores made. The first was regarding off take agreements, or more the legality behind them. It seems so far that most offtake agreements that have been signed with Junior miners are more like MOU’s or letters of intent. These off take agreements are along way from the “Take or Pay” contracts that exist in the commodities market generally, and are far less valuable in terms of using them in a business plan to show to a bank manager when wanting to borrow money.
This is all that has been available to Junior mining companies thus far, and the companies have had to in effect fund them selves. This is changing rapidly, and with the rate of growth, downstream companies will have to start committing if they want the Juniors to succeed. (Did you know that the tesla giga factory at full capacity would have taken all of the 2016 capacity of the big 3 producers!)
I wondered if our “offtake” agreement with Hanwa was more than a letter of intent? Maybe somebody who is better at reading contracts than me could answer that?
It could be one of the reason why it has been difficult for us to find funding so far? That would make make me feel better about the situation we are in in a way, because it means that its not bcn that has a problem, but more the junior lithium space in general. Our time will come!
The second interesting point was where they both (Joe Lowry and Simon Moores) see lithium carb/hydroxide settling. Joe made the point that hydroxide would not continue to offer much of a premium to carbonate, and that they saw prices settling between the low teens and 17 thousand dollars a ton.
Now our pfs was done with li carb at $11000 a ton.
Costing $4000 a ton to produce, which at 17,500 tons a year would give a gross profit of 122.5 million dollars.
Now considering the funding problems that all juniors are having, the problems the brine producers are having increasing their output due to water rationing (which is something that is probably going to get worse rather than better) and the fact that the only new supply is Spodumene concentrate coming out if Oz (which needs to be processed in China to make a battery grade product), then I see no reason why our li carb can’t sell at the higher end of the estimates.
So if we take a sale price of $16000 a tonne, then we get $210,000,000 annual gross profit.
Then bring online phase two, we get a gross profit of $420,000,000. Don't forget that the pfs barely scratches the area we are starting mining in (7% was discussed on the kdnc board I think!), and then we have the JV areas with Cadence to go at.
We can keep 35,000 tonnes a year going indefinitely! But this wont happen. It will scale up rapidly and get as big as we need!
(Sorry for the use of ton and tonne. Never sure which one we use nowadays)
Some Sunday afternoon listening.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/global-lithium-podcast/id1316155766?i=1000419307855
Global lithium interviews SDmoores of Benchmark lithium. Interesting conversation about how lithium pricing works (very complicated! Don’t believe what main stream media/Financial analysts says) and also how off take contracts have been put together so far, and how this is changing as money is starting to finally pour into the industry.
(See Kidman resources deal)