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The truth is very simply the value of Havieron at consensus gold/copper prices is probably between 12-16p per share based on the 30% stake (£1.5-2bn total project NPV) for the orebody that has emerged over the past couple of years. Of course, there are still a lot of unknown variables in the deposit and I'm making some presumptions, so 10-20p would be a reasonable band to give some margin of error, and scope for expansion and growth. The deposit will grow at depth and the breccia will be extended, but there probably won't be any huge surprises now in terms of high grade extensions to this orebody - it is now fairly well drilled - a known quantity in terms of magnitude and grade. Most the additional exploration targets to expand the resource are breccia related, but I'm skeptical that even doubling the lower grade breccia material will add that much more value, as the majority of the real value of the project is in the crescent zone which is higher grade and nearer surface. Transporting the lower grade ore 45km to Telfer and treating it is viable but the margins are not fantastic - there are large remaining similar low grade caveable resources at Telfer which would be equally accessible. Newcrest is interested in this primarily for the higher grade material in the crescent zone which is averaging 5g/t Au eq, that will have great margins, huge revenues at even relatively low throughputs. Its likely the mine infrastructure from this can then be used to extract lower grade breccia material as well, but the margins on that will not be as strong. The crescent zone is only 35% of the tonnage, but it is 65% of the ounces, and 80% of the project value.

Firstly, the calculations on the SeekingAlpha article take no account that LIMH only own 51% of the assets, so the valuation needs to be halved.

Secondly, the iron ore price is in freefall currently. Over the past few days it has fallen significantly, 62% fines now at $150, and 58% fines at $140 - this project will likely produce a mixture of lump & 58/62 fines.

https://www.metalbulletin.com/Article/3973290/Latest-news/IRON-ORE-DAILY-Poor-steel-demand-weak-sentiment-drag-seaborne-prices-down.html

If the price falls back below $110/t, the project is worthless again. its that simple!

There is potential value in LIMH sure, but I wouldn't bank on $3.

Was replying to Sammy there in case of doubt haha. CK I dont think we've met, but we may well have gone to the same "school".

I mean now you've really started me off... the facts are SML could have started LCCM up with the money they've paid the BoD in wages and bonuses over the past 3 years that they've owned it. I mean its such a tiny sum, just $2.2m to start up Paltridge North? If its true, get on with it! They could have raised at 1.5p, now 0.5p, its still only 20% of the market cap, get on with it! Stop all this PEPR delay nonsense, people have built copper mines 100x the size of this in South Australia quicker than this project is taking. At this point the market doesn't believe in the project its that simple.

The market wants to see a path forwards. Progress, milestones, derisking. Thats what the market values. Either ditch LCCM for good, or get it into production. And as for Redmoor, $90m capex, mediocre IRR, using high pricing assumptions - the market isn't interested in that, its worthless. Get the project JVed with the people with a gigantic mill next door, and then we'll be cooking on gas.

"I noted in a couple of your posts that you stated ‘we’, so I hope that you’re invested here"

Haha, yeah maybe a slight mistatement there, although I am emotionally invested in the project in Cornwall! But not financially in SML at the moment, and I just don't see a clear rationale to do so right now. I have been invested in SML in the past, but I got frustrated with the lack of progress at LCCM, and all the smoke and mirrors. I mean specifically on LCCM, I was particularly amazed by the statement on the 1st Nov 2020 RNS that they "reduced capital requirements" - when the start up capital clearly went up, if you compare to the RNS of 19th Nov 2019. And all the continual assurances on funding and moving forwards, but no clear deadlines or details, I get its not easy, but after a while it just becomes meaningless. If the LCCM project is so damn good, and the BoD really believe in the numbers in the Study, then just damn well get on with and raise the equity and get it into production!

As for Redmoor, I think I've been pretty clear below I see just one clear path forwards in the current market, which should be pretty self-explanatory from my previous posts, and I think if that were to happen, the project would gain serious credibility in the market, and would justify a decent valuation straight away, potentially rising by multiples if it could advance to a successful PFS. Better to own a share of something that could be viable, than all of nothing.

Arsenic mining, that might be a tougher sell... but look there is nothing wrong with tungsten, its benign and unreactive environmentally, its been used to replace lead in many applications, just the same as tin. I think in terms of environmental reputational its equal to tin, but is also rarer with stronger strategic credentials than tin. If they're repackaging the project as tin solely for planning I think its a miscalculation. Is tin on the critical raw materials list? Nope.

https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/statistics/criticalRawMaterials.html

"Its not a question of tin being trendier. Cornwall has a history of Tin mining, its in the culture and heritage so the locals accept it and there is less opposition, enn support. If it becomes something else then that local support could evaporate, leading to planning delays and local opposition, perhaps even refusal of consent. Besides Tin is in demand and there is a shortage going forward."

That may well be part of the SML rationale for it, but I agree with CK, I don't think the locals will care whether it is tin, tungsten, copper or a mixture thereof - the facts are its metal mining, its in Cornwall, and it follows on from a long history of hard rock mining, including for tungsten, which Cornwall was the #1 in the world for production of, in the late 19th century (source: Castle-An-Dinas, Cornwall's Premier Wolfram Mine, by Tony Brooks").

That was an interesting interview. The host had obviously got some professional steer on the project, and went for it at 5:07; "Just out of interest... the mineralisation it's predominantly tungsten, here is it?" Cue a very convoluted dodging of the question. He then came back to it at 6:03; "And so the reason you're reporting these grades in tin equivalent... is that... because the tin's more valuable?". Again, more confusing answers, saying the resource out there is largely a tin resource - yet even the preceding 2018 resource had 50% more WO3 than Sn. The truth is, SML seem to be presenting it as a tin project for marketing reasons because they see tin as trendier, yet the higher end market participants looking at this will all be very confused what on earth they are doing. It almost made sense to present as tin equivalent when the project started off in 2013 with similar tin and tungsten grades, but virtually all of the subsequently discovered high grade mineralisation is tungsten so it makes no sense now. And then at 8:20 the host asks about Hemerdon, which obviously is very relevant, whatever they want to say. Either the host or whoever briefed them before the interview knew their stuff.

Anyway, to elaborate further on this, all the drillhole data is shown in the JORC resource press release dated 14 February 2019. If we interrogate that as a database, so looking at all the drilling done on the project in its history - we can see that there are no intersections over 2% Sn, 3 over 0.8% Sn, and 8 over 0.5% Sn. For tungsten meanwhile, there are 8 over 2% WO3, 20 over 0.8% WO3 and 39 over 0.5% WO3. So the high grade mineralisation is overwhelmingly tungsten. Even more clearly, this is demonstrated by the fact the Pearson correlation coefficient between WO3 intercepts and Sn Eq is 0.94, so very strong - whilst the Sn intercept correlation with Sn Eq is actually slightly negative... that means the tin mineralisation has no correlation whatsoever with the overall mineralisation value, whereas with tungsten its a strongly positive correlation. Basically, in laymens terms, the tin is incidental in the overall value of the mineralisation, it isn't a factor in most of the zones of the deposit for where you would target to mine, which is why its grade decreases at higher cutoffs and in the projected mineable resources in the Scoping Study. At best using a tin equivalent grade for this resource is irrelevant, at worst its misleading. And talking about tin prices and so on in relation to this project to try and market it as such likewise. If they want to have a tin project, they need to find some decent tin mineralisation, 3 intersections between 0.8% and 1.6% tin, does not a tin project make. It won't work, no mining professional is going to recommend this as a tin project currently, and I would advise that this "marketing" is doing more harm than good to the credibility of the project and especially its owners.

Yeah CK, that is something that should be looked at, makes a fair bit of sense in relation to achieving higher recovery when targeting the copper mineralisation and not incurring the cost or permission requirements of a tailings dam. One would have to look at the value of the copper vs the capital requirements for that. I think though most of the sulphides would follow the heavy minerals through into the Hemerdon gravity concentrates and a flotation cleaning stage, probably multiple stages, would probably be essential to stop contamination of the final concentrates, and may recover some copper, for a very low capex. This is how the old cornish processing plants worked prior to Wheal Jane - gravity before flotation, and that would typically recover 30-50% copper. You can also bring aggregates/tailings in the backloads for virtually no cost. I'd also point out the cost of processing on site at the 600ktpa rate with flotation-gravity flowsheet will exceed the cost of transport + gravity process offsite, this is just due to the economies of scale of a 3mtpa processing plant and the short distance. Possible opportunity to introduce crushing and ore sorting of coarser sizes at Redmoor to further reduce transport cost, increase feed grade and provide backfill material, for circa $10m capex, could also be looked at, as sheeted vein system ideal for application of ore sorting.

The mine scheduling is important yes, and for optimal cases isn't exactly the same for the two options. But fundamentally... you're looking at average annual revenue at current metal prices ($240/mtu tungsten, $22k tin, $8k copper - with an additional 20% APT processing fee applied to tungsten) of $74m - operating costs $45m = $29m cashflow per annum, on the base case project.

And average annual revenue of $52m at those same prices - operating costs $36m = $16m per annum for the trucking option, based on a conservative 65% tungsten recovery, 50% tin recovery and 0% copper.

The difference is the capital costs, $90m vs $20m. Payback of 3.1 years for the base case, or 1.3 years for trucking. It's not a close call really. Its the difference between a marginal project and a potential goer.

They're going to reopen it with a new processing configuration as I said.

"I agree with most of what you say there Southwesterner, the only area I disagree with you is the processing. The big difference between here and Hemerdon is grade, the hemedon plant is designed to concentrate a low grade bulk tonnage operation - redmoor isn't that. The kind of deposit that redmoor is, it requires among the simplest process flow sheets to remove the tungsten - basic gravity separation (tin can be separated from tungsten with mag sep) (the drill samples show a really coarse tungsten mineral), then its pretty straightforward to add in copper flotation. I don't think its worth trucking to drakelands"

I disagree, although I'm not an expert in mineral processing. But my understanding is the gravity fines process at Hemerdon was overloaded during the last period of operation due to excess fines generation from the crushing circuit particularly in the kaolinised material. They plan to rectify this mainly by using a crushing circuit that generates less fines, and ore sorting to pre-concentrate the ore to a higher grade before feeding the majority of it into the coarse gravity (DMS) circuit, so the fines circuit stands a chance. Redmoor ore is easier to gravity concentrate due to the coarse mineralisation, so it would also suit this configuration. I can't see anything inherent in the Hemerdon plant design that would preclude feeding in higher grade ore - in fact it has a greater chance of gravity concentrating with higher grade ore as the concentration ratio is less. The hypothetical Redmoor plant wouldnt be able to achieve decent recovery on Hemerdon ore, but the Hemerdon plant should achieve decent tungsten/tin recoveries on Redmoor ore. If copper gets into the final concentrates, they can use a small flotation cleaner circuit to deal with that and possibly recover maybe 30% of the Redmoor copper overall. The cost of trucking there is around $6/tonne, a pittance - and so the overall cost of processing at the larger scale plant including trucking will be lower than the Opex of running a 600ktpa processing system at Redmoor, so it will actually bring down Opex overall from $75/t to around $60-65/t. Plus no new tailings dam or mill to permit - and backloads of killas rejects can be brought back to Redmoor for paste backfilling when required. There'll be more Ginsters lorries on the A388 than this creates, its a tiny amount of traffic compared to even a medium sized quarry. If you eliminate the entire processing plant and most of the plant infrastructure in the Capex, that'll be over 3/4 of the total Capex. Check the economics, very strong.

On the flip side... the facts are simple...

In terms of undeveloped tungsten projects... we're more or less out in front on our own, with only a few peers. When you exclude the massive scale and remote projects with enormous $200m+ Capex's, which in all likelihood are not going to be developed in foreseeable market conditions because of the price volatility risks. And then also exclude the lower grade projects with higher Opex and technical processing risks, there really aren't many projects around that compare to Redmoor. Arguably the likes of Dolphin in Tasmania (actually on King island to the north of Tasmania), and possibly Sangdong in South Korea owned by Almonty, which is already being put into production.

In terms of strategic value, to the UK, Europe or wider, I'd argue tungsten has much greater prospect than tin for being of actual use. There are no primary tin smelters dealing with tin concentrate in Europe, the only ones remaining do recycled materials smelting only. So if you build a tin mine, you have no market for concentrates anyway except Asia. If you're going to source your tin metal from smelters in Indonesia, Malaysia, etc - it really doesn't matter where the concentrates come from as there is already an existing "accredited" supply chain. Whereas with tungsten, there is still a demand for concentrates from operations in Europe and North America, and they would prefer to source their materials from a sustained regional supply.

Going back to the Redmoor scoping study economics, the key sensitivity by far is to tungsten price. They used a tungsten price higher than the current level, so really the simple truth is the project has no value to the market currently as it stands. Even using a tungsten price 25% higher than current levels, the economics are not particularly strong with a (post tax) IRR under 25%, and a Capital:NPV ratio of 1:1. These numbers just aren't viable, especially with something as volatile as the tungsten price, to get financed by the market a project would need much more robust metrics. Further exploration could increase the resources and improve the economics but you'd probably need to double the resource and increase the grade. So on the face of it, the market assigning zero value to Redmoor makes sense. So thats it, Redmoor is over, right?

Wrong. As a standalone project, in current market conditions, sure. But it all hinges on what happens 20 miles down the road and across the Tamar. Run the economics with processing there, you eliminate the vast majority of Capex, the additional Opex for transport is minor - only downside is you probably lose the copper revenue. But overall taking those things into account the economics are extremely attractive, its a complete game changer - the reality is the value in the currently delineated resources at Redmoors are locked up in that development route.

"Surely if Tin is the requirement of the day then mining W for profit will also bring the Sn for profit. So while the majority is Wolfram, the Tin may be the catalyst. In monetary term the in ground value for W, Tn, and Cu looks excellent. I have nothing yet to compare it to other operations but am looking."

The tin content... just isn't significant. The scoping study operation will produce 408t Sn in concentrate per annum at the planned production and recovery rates, that is from 600kt ore x 0.1% Sn with 68% recovery.

The value of that tin concentrate produced per annum at current market prices is around $9m (408t x $22k). The average operating cost per annum of Redmoor is $45m (600kt x $75/t operating cost). All figures from published Scoping study. I think that pretty much sums up why whatever happens to the tin price will not determine the future of this project.

If tin is the requirement of the day, you'll need to find a tin deposit. That simple really.

Obviously I realise Morocco is in Africa, but I meant DRC etc, before anyone points that out...

Expanding on this...

You know, if you want an undeveloped tin deposit in a reasonable jurisdiction, so ignoring Russia, Kazakhstan and Africa - although there are huge resources there... lets look at... in terms of tin resources only (not tin equivalent);

Acchmach in Morocco (Kasbah), 14.6 Mt @ 0.90% Sn = 131kt
Nazareth in Peru (Minsur), 9Mt @ 1.38% Sn = 123kt
Heemskirk in Tasmania (Stellar Res), 6.6Mt @ 1.1% Sn = 71kt
Oropesa in Spain (Elementos), 12.5Mt @ 0.54% Sn = 67kt
Cleveland in Tasmania (Elementos), 11.2Mt @ 0.6% Sn = 67kt
South Crofty in Cornwall (Cornish Metals), 3.1Mt @ 1.58% Sn = 49kt

And then way down the list after some more projects I can't be bothered to list...

Redmoor... 11.7Mt @ 0.16% Sn = 19kt

We ain't in the picture for tin.

Sammy asked me for comment on the Redmoor project. I have commented before on this deposit, you can find that in my posting history 4 or 5 pages in. And really I will just reiterate a few key points.

A lot of people seem to be confused by what "tin equivalent" or "SnEq" is. It doesn't mean we have 1.17% tin in the deposit, it means that all the metals combined together have a value equivalent to 1.17% tin.

But actually the total resource is 11.7MT @ 0.56% WO3, 0.16% Sn and 0.5% Cu. At current prices, the value is, as calculated by Cornishknocker, around 64% tungsten, 19% copper and 17% tin.

When you look at the subset of the resource considered for extraction in the Scoping Study a few months ago, it was 7.2Mt @ 0.59% WO3, 0.10% Sn, 0.39% Cu. Within this mineralisation with economic potential, tungsten is even more dominant, at around 73% of the total value.

So all the talk of battery metals, EV revolution, etc - is all fairly redundant. This is not a significant tin deposit globally, its grading 0.1% tin in the mineable resource, and so it has neither scale nor grade ranked against other global tin deposits. Tin is a byproduct to tungsten, arguably secondary to even the copper, so the whole tin equivalent thing is really a distraction. If the high end of the market is going to take this seriously, it needs to be marketed for what it is - a world class tungsten project, with virtually no peers.

Tungsten is a strategic industrial speciality metal of considerable importance. Redmoor fits into a place amongst global tungsten deposits which places it in a select group of large scale high grade projects, and one can more or less discount many of them such as MacTung because of the remote location and immense capital costs to bring it to production. Obviously I've used a WO3-Eq grade here for comparison purposes.

https://i.imgur.com/Xm0Xs3m.jpg

I think realistically all the "strategic" battery metals stuff is a distraction from what they have here, which is a world class project. Any tin concentrate would be smelted in Asia anyway, so it doesnt really secure supply. It seems to be spurring short term investor interest in the shares in relation to the G7 in Cornwall, but what is realistically going to come out from this? This deposit is at least 2 years from a production decision, it needs considerable further drilling to bring resources into the indicated status, around £2m of drilling to convert all the existing resources. Then it needs planning permission, and further technical studies culminating in a Feasibility Study. Additional step out exploration also seems very warranted given that the last drilling program more than doubled resources and increased the grade as well. What SML needs is a Joint Venture to bring in the money to move the project forwards and finance the additional drilling, and it will have to be someone who is interested in buying into a tungsten project, because that is what this is.

"Any shareholders please take 6 mins out your life to watch this chart video on YouTube in relations to AYM - link below
If this is anywhere near accurate 96p I’ll take that
https://youtu.be/PIcrSgQ_2HI"

Does anyone seriously believe this nonsense... if you do, then... how can I put this nicely. Nope, I don't think I can. All the best!

"Do you think it's feasible that we may need to focus more on UK-centric commodity extraction given our current National/International/Global circumstances?"

We would certainly be wise to focus on supply chain integrity generally. However, the reality in this case is very simple - there are no copper, zinc or lead smelters in the UK - and this project would only supply a small fraction of the concentrate a smelter operation would require. All the concentrates will be exported to Europe, possibly further afield, to be made into metal. So there is really no security of supply case, although that doesn't necessarily mean the Government will understand that, because the Departments and civil servants that decide these things will likely have a very basic understanding of the details of how the mining industry functions, and may take the view that mining copper or zinc will secure the supply of those metals.

The main arguments for the Mine politically are the jobs and export revenues generated. The jobs are really significant only on a local level, so the Welsh Government is the best chance there - talk is cheap, there have been rumours in the past, but no concrete action. Meanwhile the export revenues are not massive compared to some things, but ultimately its a billion $ over 12 years so a case could be made. That said we haven't had a coherent national industrial strategy for a long time, and I think it would be a very dangerous game to presume that its likely the Government will swoop in here and stump up serious cash to support this. One must recall the SXX (Sirius Minerals) tale, and that will generate well over a billion $ every year in export revenues. Despite that, it got zero government support and only Anglo American's intervention kept the project afloat - investors, many locals, lost heavily.

"So you are saying $ 2.5m for 90 t and 40t.
The production for the first 6 months was 106.5t and 64.5 t, and the revenue was just over 1m Euro.
Something not quite right !"

Yeah, you know what - I'll tell you whats not quite right, you're not listening - there is a difference between concentrate and metal. If you dont know what figures you are quoting, go back and check, before posting more rubbish please.

106.5 tonnes of tungsten concentrate. Containing 61 tonnes of WO3 metal. The then APT price in H1 2020 averaged around $160. 80% payment of that. 0.8 x 160 x 100 x 61 = $780k.

64.5 tonnes of tin concentrate. Containing 32 tonnes of Sn metal. The tin price in H1 2020 averaged around $15k. Take off 12% smelter fees. 32 x $13k = $410k

$410k + $780k = $1190k
$1190k = €1070k

There you are, near enough, comprehende?