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Another thought on drilling schedule. Anglo already have their core yard set up and appointed a contractor for drilling and assays - seems unlikely they would do that unless they expect to start drilling soon.
Even if drilling only starts end of July (and could be sooner) that is still 3-4 months. With multiple rigs active you can do a lot of drilling. Plus Anglo have wet weather drilling capability if they choose to use it. Don’t forget, Anglo will be spending $75m on drilling, which is a HUGE amount.
@Valueseeker03
Main outstanding issue for JV (deal with AA signed over 2 months ago) is the sign-off from the Zambia competition authority. Even their own website says a max of 90 days for sign-off, so not far away. Source is email reply from NvS.
Given what the Zambian government has been saying about AA returning to the country, this seems to be a formality.
@caddy.
Its moving a lot on very low volume, so you can't really conclude much from the price changes except the MMs are dropping it on minimal volume. Today, for example, we are 4% down, with only 1 share in every 1500 traded.
Its a similar story most days. The only way the MMs (or more likely the algo) can create activity (and make money) on a tightly-held share like this is by larger price movements.
>> Come out of hiding and give us some positive news.
Hiding? There was a long interview a couple of weeks ago. Maybe watch that?
https://twitter.com/arcminerals/status/1665974589640327168?s=52
Also, the JV is signed and ARCM is now waiting on Zambia government approvals and licencing. There is not much the company can do on that front, apart from chasing officials, and AAL will have much more influence than us anyway - one of the benefits of partnering with a major. Do you want an RNS that states "Still waiting for approvals"?
Does anyone know why peggy is such a persistent troll on this board? He is here most days, plugging away regardless of confusing facts, which is sort of admirable from a dedication perspective. There even seem to be peggy duplicates for extra effort.
I'm intrigued as to why though. He plainly isn't an existing shareholder, so is he a bitter ex-holder? A trader (unlikely). The type of person who trolls for fun? (although why restrict himself to Arcm alone?). A philanthropist dedicated to saving other people's money (assuming he actually believes what he writes)?
None of these really make sense - so open to theories about the Peggy Persistence Problem?
>> I do get psd off though when we get company reps spilling out over telegram. I mean are we supposed to all have, discord/fb/Snapchat/LSE/Twitter and every other media platform. I refuse to sign up, as I don’t trust them with my data (oh the irony!) and they are purveyors of unsavoury material!
The Telegram group for PXC has 500+ members and is busy every day. Its also well moderated, yet allows for a variety of opinions (positive and negative). The LSE board often is very quiet, with no posts on the majority of days. If PXC wants to reach their shareholder base and pass on information that is not appropriate for an RNS, then Telegram is obviously the best place to post. Not only does Donald post there, but the CFO posts occasionally too.
If I am going to be invested in a stock, then I will use the medium (or media) that has the best and most up-to-date information. It seems odd to ignore the most active source of information on PXC and then complain about the company providing useful information via that source.
The post from DP explains why there wasn't more detailed information on the RNS. The QP wasn't available, so PXC could either delay the RNS until after tomorrow's AGM (which would prevent discussion on ATS), or provide what was available now and add the rest when the QP was back from vacation, which seems a sensible option. I didn't get the impression this meant any overall delay in the process.
However, I appreciate your post as no one on TG could understand the selling, so at least we now know why.
>> Yep looks like a Riverfort default is looming large
"The Company has entered into a short-term $2,000,000 loan facility (the "Facility") with Riverfort Global Opportunities PCC Ltd . The Facility is unsecured, has an initial three month term (the "Initial Term"), and pays a fixed 4% coupon. The Company has the option to extend the Facility beyond the Initial Term for a further nine months, at 1% interest per month."
Exactly how do you 'default' on a 12 month loan after 3 months? The de-ramps are becoming desperate :)
For context on the RNS, here is a Telegram post from Donald Pond, the representative from PXC:
"There has been a little comment about the lack of detail in today’s RNS, so after speaking to one of the directors I thought I would add a few comments.
The RNS mentioned “robust” metal recoveries similar to those we achieved at bench level. The reason why we haven’t given percentages is simple: that would need a Qualified Person to sign off, and Zach Black, our QP, is currently on a family holiday.
So when the results came back from the lab, we had a choice of either issuing an RNS so that we could talk about ATS at the AGM, or disturbing Zach and getting him to cross check everything and sign off, which would both take a big chunk out of his holiday and delay the RNS. The whole point of being a QP is that you don’t simply rubber stamp stuff but do your own verification, so that wasn’t an option.
So what does “robust” mean? In June 2020 we mentioned using ATS on gold and silver. That RNS said
“Precious metals tests performed on samples from the Empire open pit deposit using non-toxic ammonium thiosulfate ("ATS") reagent resulted in high gold recoveries of 97.8% and 97.7%, and silver recoveries of 69.8% and 78.2%, respectively”
That provides a benchmark for what is meant by “robust” in this context. I think we have previously mentioned recoveries above 90% in a corporate presentation too, and linked them to the word “robust”, but I can’t lay my hands on that right now.
As far as copper is concerned, using a heap leach generally gives around 70% recovery. It is the law of diminishing returns, in that the longer you leach, the lower the recovery rates become.
Recovery from ATS is almost certainly going to be better than that, as we are operating in a closed system. It may be that there ends up being a small drop off in one metal to increase production of another, but the company is confident that when Zach is back and we are able to give details on the actual recovery rates, everyone will be very happy.
The upshot is, producing 3 metals from day 1, and getting recovery rates in those sort of regions, will be financially much better than the original approach in every way."
Completion is dependent on government approvals and NvS doesn't have control over the Zambian government, so 'weeks, not months' is an estimate, not a promise or a 'committment'. However, as Tertiary just got their approval and their date of application was two days before us, it looks like a fairly good estimate.
However, based on your recent posts, I am sure you knew all that and were just trying to cause FUD for some reason.
Total volume for the whole of May, including buys, sells, rollovers, bed & ISA, was just over 5% of shares in issue, which is minimal volume. There is no 'sell-off', just the usual price drift you get with all mining shares with no volume. The owners of 96%+ of ARCM shares were holding or adding.
However, on this occasion, with such an amazing deal already signed, its very easy to be patient while we wait for the government to sort out the approval paperwork.
OK, I guess you could just ignore everything I said and quote a meaningless platitude.
Arc have already delivered. We are now waiting for the government to sign off the agreement, which is obviously outside the control of the company. Was there some other point you were trying to make, or are you just desperately trying to find something negative to say?
Did you miss the deal-signing RNS, helpfully titled "Zambian JV Agreement Signed with Anglo American" ?
"Arc Minerals is pleased to announce that through its subsidiary, Unico Minerals Limited, it has signed a binding joint venture agreement with a subsidiary of Anglo American"
We are now awaiting government sign-off, but given what the government has been saying about welcoming AAL back to Zambia, and Anglo talking about the JV and their new education initiative in Zambia, that seems to be about paperwork and time, not decisions.
I think that probably counts as a little more than 'interest from the majors' or 'positive news flow'. It certainly is a 'game-changer' and we await the $75m drilling investment on Anglo's top 7 target licences in Zambia to see if we do hit the 'motherlode' - or maybe multiple motherlodes!
@MT - so you already knew what the CFO said (because you are on Telegram), but decided to post the opposite anyway. If we ever needed proof of your agenda, you just provided it yourself :)
As you are on Telegram, you must also remember what the CFO stated as the reason for taking the loan when they didn't need for it for overheads:
CFO (28th March): "As for short term financing. It is nothing other than an insurance policy to ensure that pre-construction work and pre-season exploration preparations can continue uninterrupted pending bond completion. We have no intention of allowing it to go beyond the 3 months and possibly be converted... Cash wise, we remain in a good position and can cover corporate and basic operational costs well into 2024."