Member Info for SickOfTheRatRace

The Company owns an effective 64 % of the Project through its wholly owned subsidiary Bushveld Resources Limited (or "BRL"), which in turn holds 64 % of Pamish Investments No 39 (Pty) Ltd (or "Pamish")

Pamish Investments No 39 (Pty) Ltd is listed as http://www.vmic.co.za/

Then look at the leadership team page, recognise anyone?! http://www.vmic.co.za/leadership.html

Endion BMN would contribute 64% of the 30%, if that makes sense.

St0wski as a long term holder you will know that this board is different to probably every other board out on LSE. There is no uber ramping, pump and dump or any such shenanigans going on here. It is a fundamentals based commentary board, anyone who does even basic research will see this is undervalued.

So I can only repeat my previous question as you are not going to find anyone here who will criticise people for buying a stock that is materially undervalued. So I am not sure exactly what "balance" you are expecting to see in a stock where the vast majority of investors are buying in to chronically undervalued fundamentals and will continue to do so for a long time yet?

St0wski in what universe would you expect investors to be critical of a rising price?

Excellent.

Before any trolls wish to seize on this announcement the ownership of 74% with 26% BEE was entirely expected and crosses off another item in the restructuring list.

There could also be an element that Fortune has taken on previous complaints on this board and is now trying to put some indicative timescales on announcements so investors know what to expect (and don't start flooding info@ asking when updates are coming). Similarly with production guidance, investors want to know how this is going to affect the guidance (if at all) so we have been told we will get the figure in the Q3 update. Let's face it there isn't really that much to evaluate, they will know the plant production on a daily if not hourly basis. Likely here they want to ensure there is some stability at the plant and a period without further wildcat strikes before announcing to us as the staff will receive their payment right around now.

For BE November may or may not be significant and as ever BBN you make a compelling case reading between the lines. It could just be a time outlined by engineers. A consideration is the time to source and deliver replacement electrolyte (which may require reformulation and testing before volume production) and the DC hardware (which may even need a design tweak that has lead time) and they need to allow sufficient time for delivery, installation and testing before updating progress and there is insufficient time to provide an update in Q3 BE. They know that a lot of industry eyes are on them at the moment with this Eskom battery and how it is progressing, a Q4 update in January is too much delay particularly given the volume of storage they have outlined they want to deliver next year.

At home we had a discussion about topslicing and agreed 30p. That was when the shareprice was 3p.

Now we reached 30p we discussed it again and no-one wants to topslice when the potential is there for 300p.

Brightonpier123 I don't see any issues at this time. It is a test battery for exactly that reason, to see how it performs and find and resolve any issues.

As a reminder or for anyone seeing this for the first time this is the statement from the RNS:

"During commissioning of the VRFB, a performance issue was experienced, and initial assessments confirmed a vanadium electrolyte constraint. As a result, the battery was not able to meet the specified operational performance. It was also determined that it would not be possible to resolve the constraint in South Africa at this time and a remediation strategy was immediately implemented. The remediation includes the provision of new electrolyte and hardware for the DC module of the battery. This will allow commissioning to resume and be completed in Q4 2018. The Company will provide an update on progress in November 2018."

So it is listed as an electrolyte constraint that will require new electrolyte and DC battery module. Clearly there are people more versed in VRFB technology than I am, but I believe BE are planning to manufacture mixed acid electrolyte and Ophidian mentioned earlier this battery is using single acid.

The reference to requiring new electrolyte is very interesting when coupled with the statement "It was also determined that it would not be possible to resolve the constraint in South Africa at this time". We could infer that this statement is very deliberate, attempting to make the point to us that the resolution will be new electrolyte and it cannot be resolved in South Africa at this time because we haven't built the plant to make it - yet.

The most important takeaway from this part of the announcement is that although it sounds negative I really don't think it is. The test did exactly what it was supposed to. It identified an issue, the necessary remediation was immediately identified and is in progress. So they know how to fix it and fix it they will and as I said earlier it will be important going forward in engineering this out at the earliest stage avoiding the need for any potential expensive retrofit some way down the line.

Another important consideration is that UET are not new at this. Their own site states "proven, high-performance large-scale stacks with 15 years of development, 9 years of field deployment, and hundreds deployed". So one question will be is part of this issue the deployment location/environment/climate.

Of course many of us are hungry for detail and we won't have to wait long to know more.

I note this from the RNS in regards to Bushveld Energy:

"During commissioning of the VRFB, a performance issue was experienced, and initial assessments confirmed a vanadium electrolyte constraint. As a result, the battery was not able to meet the specified operational performance. It was also determined that it would not be possible to resolve the constraint in South Africa at this time and a remediation strategy was immediately implemented. The remediation includes the provision of new electrolyte and hardware for the DC module of the battery. This will allow commissioning to resume and be completed in Q4 2018. The Company will provide an update on progress in November 2018."

Intrigued to know what that constraint was. As we are not yet producing electrolyte it would have been sourced from elsewhere. In which case is this constraint environmental in terms of pressure, climate, temperature etc?

It's good that this was discovered early on and there is already mitigation in terms of new electrolyte and hardware. Any learning from this experience then goes directly into BE electrolyte production in the plant. Better uncovered now and necessary reformulations/redesigns implemented rather than discovering a problem after a number of deployments and having to retrospectively fix possibly at significant cost.

Daisan I believe it is because there is no appetite to accept a situation that doesn't match historical norms, i.e. a sine wave of commodities increasing in price and then gradually decreasing to low levels then increasing again.

Many of us have said before that this is not a normal situation, there are ever increasing uses for Vanadium, increased strength requirements for steel that will not go away and VRFB's are going to fuel demand like never before - Alfacomp said a couple of days ago that one planned battery would need 40,000 tonnes of V to power or more than 10 years of total Vametco production at 3,750mtv. For one battery.

With all the price drivers both in play and upcoming there is as close to zero hope of a $35 2019 average as it is possible to fathom. It's the classic of more chance of finding Elvis riding Shergar on the Moon.

Industry commentators need to throw away an assumption that Vanadium will follow a commodity cycle as it has in the past, purely because the situation now is unlike any situation in the past and will never return to historical demands solely from steel.

Sanchez I certainly don't believe it. I recall offering a bottle of alcohol to everyone at the 30p party if the average for 2018 was less than $40/45 (I forget the exact number).

There was no chance of that figure being met and there is no chance of a $35 average in 2019 without some unforeseen world affecting disaster in which case there will be a lot more to worry about than Vanadium prices.

At the moment it is difficult to see a 2019 average of less than $90.

@faramog I don't know the exact date of his passing but I have 28th September in my diary as the date we heard about it from Manlord.

I have now made my donation. Thanks to Milkman87 for setting this up. Great charity choice for something that has touched the lives of many investors here and fantastic to see so many new investors pledging their support despite not being involved in the original Corbine Cup.

Congratulations Milkman and all Bushveld Minerals investors on reaching this important milestone in the development of the company. Special thanks to Fortune Mojapelo, the BMN board and Corbine - RIP.

Additional thanks to faramog for running the competition.

I am looking forward to discussions on the next cup/milestone. I think it would be a fitting tribute to Corbine to hold this cup as an annual event but at a fixed date to mark the anniversary of the passing of Steve. So as a suggestion we could make the cup challenge the closing mid price on the last trading day in September as that will tie in quite nicely with the release of the annual interims the same week. Happy to be involved in multiple challenges through the year both fixed and open ended, all in support of charity.

Did Fortune Mojapelo just make a donation?

Ian Mecrow
24 mins ago

Courtesy of Fortune Mojapelo at Bushveld

Well said Manlord and I hope the family are still benefiting from Steves investment.

I am sure all our thoughts are with Steves family this week and the release of BMNs first profitable figures will be a fitting tribute to the foresight of an exceptional investor.

Congratulations Milkman and to all holders who kept the faith. 30p is an important milestone but is just the beginning for this truly exceptional company. It is a pleasure to be on this journey with you all.

A special mention to Corbine. Without his insights and musings so many of us would not be in the very fortunate position we find ourselves in today, myself included. Rest in peace and our eternal thanks.

Sorry that should have read H1 interims.

Fyoz I believe it is "when" rather than "if".

Dividends are coming and we have been told they will communicate that policy in H2 2018 so before the end of the year. I would be surprised if there is no mention of this in the H2 interims.

Another mining company announced a profit and maiden dividend this week and went up by a third.

BMN H1 profitability plus a dividend announcement would be the icing on the cake.

Nick, I believe I am right in saying that Glencore have a 100% offtake agreement with Largo. Therefore if you want to buy Vanadium from a large scale primary producer actually you can only buy from Bushveld Minerals and Glencore.

Everyone interested in commodities has heard of Glencore. It seems hardly anyone has heard of Bushveld Minerals.

For now.

LionelGreen if we are talking about someone with an interest in BMN being the champion then I feel it has to be Mikhail Nikomarov.

Mikhail impresses me more with every interview he gives. He is supremely confident, knows the subject inside and out and gives the impression that he could talk for hours about energy storage without breaking a sweat.

I hope as Bushveld Energy matures we will see a lot more of him.