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If you look at Asian Metal then every single V price is down today.
Very thorough summary, faramog. Many thanks for doing this and so promptly.
The $7m will come from a mix of.....$12.5m equity from SPR, the proceeds from sale of 50% of Vanchem, sale of Belco, plus any cash they manage to generate in the meantime (though I suspect this final one is unlikely given current state of production and V prices). Orion would not have refinanced if they didn't think BMN had a credible plan for repaying the first installment in 5 months time.
The 27 Nov Orion refinance was explicitly conditional on BMN raising $12.5m from elsewhere. The fact that Orion have now completed even though they know about the SPR issue means they must be very confident that the SPR finance is positively resolved even if it hasn't been announced yet. No way would they have committed their deal if one of their key conditions wasn't met or if they thought BMN was a gonna by the end of Feb.
The issue is whether SPR can find the money. If they can't then BMN will rapidly run out of cash. Arguing they could sue SPR is pointless as BMN will have long gone under by the time any legal case bears fruit (even if BMN had the money to finance a legal case... which they wouldn't).
Depends on whether they have the money to pay for the maintenance.
FFS If I wanted to read about politics I'd look in a newspaper or go elsewhere on the internet. This is a BMN discussion board so stop wasting space here with amateur politics.
As of 2 Jan, FeV 80% price in Europe was $26.25/kg. It may have moved up a couple of percent since then, but $30/kg sounds over-optimistic.
Source: https://vanadiumprice.com/
Agreed, not the best start to the year. Worth noting that as this delay occurs across the end of year financial boundary there's no way an immediate RNS could be avoided otherwise the auditors and regulatory authorities would have a field day come results prep time. Hopefully just a short delay. Nevertheless good to see the company getting the announcement out very quickly and a sign it is on top of its regulatory obligations and communications.
Another 4 prices rises overnight on Asian Metal, including over 2% increase in vanadium nitrite (the nearest comparison with Nitrovan).
I'm not surprised by the muted reaction to the SGM vote. While the vote was an overwhelming endorsement of the refinancing package (and implicitly Craig's delivery of this), 525m new shares are being admitted to the market tomorrow which is a 30% increase. At the current share price the new shares represent a circa £10m market cap increase. Much of this will have been priced in over the last month or so (hence the falling share price in December), but it can take time for these readjustments to fully complete in the market.
Good to see the V price continue to show evidence of bottoming and perhaps starting to upturn.
One potential wrinkle to be aware of is that SA has had some bad weather over Christmas with high rainfall and flooding (and a number of deaths) notably in central parts. We may be fortunate and not be impacted but, on the other hand, we got hit with the barren dam flooding issues a year ago so don't be surprised if there's another impact announced again. As we all know, today's vote was a crucial milestone towards the financing needed to address the dam issues fully.
Largo share price went up 16% yesterday on no apparent news so perhaps a few whispers of a plan to staunch their bleeding going around?
More generally I see the weekly fastmarkets price update shows a 5% increase in European prices this week and US prices flat rather than falling for the first time in many weeks. Perhaps more evidence to support the Asian Metal data over the past few weeks showing that we may be hitting the bottom of the price falls and about to see an upturn in the new year.
On that positive note... Merry Christmas.
Faramog - you may not trust KS but as per the RNS of 14th December granting options to Portillion he's given an irrevocable undertaking to vote in favour of the resolutions. Furthermore Acacia or Orange Trust will vote for the resolutions given how deep they are in (and planning to go deeper as part of the financing) so, along with KS, that's around 300m shares in the 'for' column.
CC is doing his job with today's RNS reminding PIs to vote. I'm sure he's confident he already has the votes to win (he'd be working the shareholder comms very hard if he was worried) and I see it as part of his strategy to re-engage and communicate with PIs after FM all but abandoned us.
You - and others - are right though. Nothing should be taken for granted here and a big PI vote in favour of the resolutions is important in signalling support for what he's trying to do.
Good news. Of all the various deals recently announced, this is the one I had a small niggly doubt whether the SA authorities might try to interfere with for political reasons so it's pleasing to see it completed. CC showing again he gets business done quickly.
Nitrovan was rebranded nearly 18 months ago. It's now called Bushveld Nitro-vanadium.
Yep, me neither until just now! Another of FMs failure to communicate gems...
https://www.bushveldminerals.com/nitrovan-to-bushveld-nitro-vanadium/
If BMN and Largo had any pricing power or influence don't you think they'd have done something already about increasing prices given the dire state of their current profitability? The reason they haven't is because they have no pricing power. Even Glencore have none in the vanadium market and they're not exactly noted for being a charity when their profits are under threat.
The idea of SPR/BMN being at the forefront of some V pricing authority is for the birds. If they were daft enough to attempt any price collusion (formal or informal) then the US justice department would soon wipe them out. If they throttled back supply it may help prices, but they'd still kill their bottom line and cash flow unless they get sufficient price rises to cover both the loss of sales volumes and the C1 increase per unit. BMNs production misses over the last 2 years are already a form of self-inflicted supply throttle and these have definitely not helped the company finances (or credibility).
CC laid out the impacts of V price changes very clearly. A 10% price change is a $20m EBITDA change based on 2024 production targets and C1 estimates - which presumably also guides the future EBITDA losses if prices fall further rather than rise as we hope and need. He laid out the priorities in terms of production stability, volume increases, capex, and cost control and this is where he'll focus, not on pricing and demand that he can't influence (and certainly not on notions of price collusion that would ruin the company, ruin his reputation, and possibly send him to jail).
V price up again overnight. The market trend has clearly turned for the better as more and more of the longer term trends turn green too. I'm not going to keep posting on this each day as day to day changes are not as significant as the overall trend over weeks and months.....and you can read the Asian metals site just as easily as me!
CC - you forgot target 10-15% increase in production in 2024!
SPR are more than just on board. They're seriously committed. They are buying half of Vanchem and all of the Mokopane resources to sit alongside their underway purchase of the adjacent Highveld Steelworks so they really are getting their hands dirty (both literally and metaphorically) and are doing the hard work for their investments to succeed. Orion are committed in that they want a return on their investment and have agreed to a refinance rather than pulling the plug, but they're standing off the day to day hard work.
No change in Chinese one-day V prices overnight. However the change in the general trend over the last week is now starting to ripple through to show increases in the 30 day and 60 day prices.
CC - much of what I posted was in the 29 Nov RNS so is out there. The V price rises are current so hopefully will encourage PIs.
I do wonder whether the Hamman ( the brokers) are aware of a handful of PIs looking to invest significant sums - say £500k - but know that trying to do so on open market will rapidly send the share price above 3p, especially if there's several of them all fighting for the same open market shares. Hence the primary bid offer to give them opportunity at a flat price. For instance, Kamran Suttar might be looking to add to his holdings in the same private capacity as he previously invested.