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The efficiency of BEV vs FCEV

Hydrogen vs. Electric Cars: Comparing Innovative Sustainability | Earth.Org

One of the most significant disadvantages of FCEVs is their inefficiency. Because of the complex processes involved both in producing and storing hydrogen and in converting the hydrogen into electricity in the fuel cells, FCEVs are generally only around 38% efficient, meaning that for every 100 watts of energy produced, only around 38 watts can be used to power the FCEV.

Unlike FCEVs, battery-powered electric vehicles are quite energy-efficient. While FCEVs are less than 40% energy-efficient, most battery-powered electric cars and other vehicles boast around 80% efficiency. This means that for every 100 watts of energy produced, nearly 80 watts will be used to power the vehicle.

Assuming that hydrogen is produced by electrolysing water then this means double the generating and grid capacity to sustain hydrogen cars, this together with the poor efficiency makes them much more expensive to run.

Fuel cells longevity, range and cost vs battery

https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/analysis/review-of-2023-the-key-developments-and-trends-in-the-global-hydrogen-sector-part-2-usage-/2-1-1577029

For example, the German state-owned public transport company responsible for introducing the world’s first hydrogen-only railway line in 2022 stated in August that it would opt for an all-electric future because it has realised that battery models “are cheaper to operate”.

Similarly, the French city that pioneered articulated hydrogen buses in 2019 said that because of four years of frequent breakdowns and a near-doubling of H2 fuel bills, the city would opt for battery electric buses in future.

Indeed, Swiss trainmaker Stadler, which builds both electric and hydrogen-powered models, said in August that battery models usually emerge victorious in technology-neutral tenders put out by German railway operators looking for low-carbon trains — and are suitable on almost every railway line.

Other problems, a senior Stadler executive explained, are that maintenance on H2 trains is more complex than on battery trains, and that their fuel cells need replacing within three years, on average.

Should be polluting the planet.

Kiziltepe

Production in 2023 was about what was expected – neither good nor bad.

The mining at Kiziltepe is going to finish in the next few years which probably means more than two and less than five years but is still good news.

Satellite pits should keep the processing plant operational for a few years after that – good news

When the processing plant is no longer being used at Kiziltepe the plans are to utilise it elsewhere, Kosovo has been mentioned – good news

Tavsan

The completion of the mine is delayed by a quarter as the heap leach liners cannot be put down at present due to bad weather. The legal challenge delayed the liners by about four months so without this the heap leach would have been completed before winter – bad news.

Steel construction and fabrication, along with the delivery of various plant components are being staggered in accordance with cash-flow considerations. There is little point in completing the processing plant before the heap leach pads are operational, so scheduling the construction of the plant to be complete when the heap leach pads are operational is just good sense. There is no point in spending/borrowing cash before you need to. – It is what it is.

Venus

Venust is now a PLC which means that the IPO can go ahead as soon as market conditions are right. The price of copper is depressed at the moment due to the slow growth of the Chinese economy (only 5%) and the low take up of EVs. The depressed EV market will turn around as consumers are waiting for the promised next generation of EVs that will cost less, have greater range (around 500 miles) and recharge times of 15 to 20 minutes. The fact is that by 2027 (three years’ time) EV manufacturers in the UK and EU must sell 70% ZE (i.e. EV) vehicles or face heavy penalties. In the US 50% must be ZE by 2027. The demand for copper (and lithium) will increase substantially over the next three years at the same time as currently depressed prices are delaying investment in new mines. Even in the US despite their love of polluting the plant it is cheaper to produce green electricity than fossil fuel electricity and EVs will become cheaper to produce than IC cars, just look at the price of EVs in China. The problem is that by having a head in the sand policy in regards to oil and IC engine cars the US is just getting left behind.

The fire at Luton airport was not caused by an EV but by a diesel car and the new solid state batteries being developed will be a lot safer than a tank of petrol.

I think that next year will be a good one for Ariana investors.

Zenit - Zenit is now in that sweet spot with a producing mine, a mine in development and some exciting future prospects to give a long-term future as a gold producer. Zenit will not be sold off nor will it sell Salinbas to another gold producer. The price of gold will stabilise at over $2,000 per oz as interest rates drop over the next couple of years. I hope Ariana will not sell its share in Zenit unless it is offered a really high price. Zenit should give an income stream for Ariana for many years to come.

Venus Minerals – The IPO will go ahead. In November Venus Minerals was changed from a private company to a PLC, a move necessary to float Venus. It looks like there will be an increasing shortage of copper in the future which should give a good lift to the price in the medium to long term.

The investments through Western Tethyan and Asgard Metals should give the opportunity to either sell the prospects at a profit or develop prospects in conjunction with third parties (such as Proccea) to give long term growth prospects.

My wish for next year is for Ariana to develop a dividend policy to return a proportion of the profit from Zenit to shareholders whilst retaining enough to carry on developing new prospects. CAML has done this very successfully. CAML’s policy is to return between 30% and 50% of free cash flow to investors whilst retaining the rest for future investment.

I hope that everyone has a great Christmas and that next year is a good one.

From todays RNS and the schematic of Salinbas it it can be seen that Salinbas is a medium grade gold ore body that runs parallel to a moderately steep slope to the top of the slope. The depth is not great and Salinbas appears to be an ore body that will be easily accessible using open cast techniques. It may not be as profitable as Kiziltepe or Tavsan but should still be profitable. I have concerns about Ardala as it is a much lower grade ore body.

Zenit is currently very busy building Tavsan and still prospecting to increase the reserves at the Kiziltepe pits, Tavsan and Salnibas/Ardala.

I think that the success of Kiziltepe is putting back the building of Salinbas.

Salinbas was always meant to become operational after Kiziltepe had finished gold production. I wonder if the plant at Kiziltepe, which is capable of producing up to 25,000 oz of gold a year, was always destined for Salinbas, where it would produce 50% of the output, after it had finished production at Kiziltepe. Why spend more capital than you must?

As Kiziltepe is going to be producing gold for several years longer than anticipated, and Tavsan is coming on stream next year, there is no rush to build Salinbas. Zenit might as well keep prospecting to ensure that the mine, when built, will be as productive and profitable as possible, and then can use the plant from Kiziltepe to minimise capital costs.

I suspect that Ozaltin brings more to the table than just enabling the JV to raise debt funding more easily. Ozaltin is a very large Turkish company with good political clout. The debacle over Tavsan when the 'environ mentalists' halted the build probably was sorted more quickly and in Zenits favour because of Ozaltins connections with the government.

Plus we all got our dividend and KS can happily indulge himself in investing in juniors and running their prospecting.

When Ariana sold half its share of the JV to Ozaltin one of the advantages was that with Ozaltin on board the JV would be able to raise its own funding for Salinbas. I remember that it was stated that Salinbas would be developed without any recourse to capital from Ariana. The JV will, of course, have to raise debt funding to build Salinbas but with Kiziltepe still producing gold and Tavsan coming on stream I suspect that raising capital for the mine build at Salinbas will not prove difficult.

Once again the good news sends the share price down. Kizilcukur will add at least 20,000 oz of highly profitable gold production to the Kiziltepe processing plant, or about an extra $20 million profit for Zenit of which Ariana’s share is about $4.7 million.

The RNS states that production for Kiziltepe will go on to at least the mid 2020’s. Kizilcukur is not going into production for 18 months (mid 2025) and will give at least an extra year’s production. I can see Kiziltepe producing gold until 2027, all the reserves of the pits that feed Kiziltepe are having further drilling programmes and resource upgrades.

Over the next ten years Tavsan will produce a minimum of 300,000 oz of gold with relatively low production costs (profit at least $1,000 per oz) from heap leach and Kiziltepe will probably produce an extra 60,000 oz of gold at a profit of at least $1,000 per oz. This adds up to $360 million profit for the JV of which Ariana’s share will be $85 million.

On top of this Salinbas will, hopefully, have been developed into a profitable mine, at no capital cost to Ariana, Venus will have had its IPO and be producing copper and gold, and some of the other investments may have realised some return to Ariana.

Why is Ariana languishing with a market capitalisation of only £24 million? I guess that investors do not see where the return on their investment is coming from, the worry is that Ariana will keep investing the profit from Zenit into more and more prospecting, where the returns are always in the future. Ariana desperately needs to have a dividend policy that returns some of the profit to the long-suffering investors. Ariana needs to take a leaf out of the playbook of CAML who return a good dividend at the same time as building a war chest to invest in new ventures.

I cannot understand the sell off of Ariana shares.

Ariana has £7 million in total current assets of which £6.2 million is cash or gold bullion. The change in cash balances between Dec 22 and June 23 is £4,545,000 of which £1,228,000 is changes in debtor and creditor balances and £1,382,000 is the purchase of gold bullion. The change in debtor and creditor balances are largely discretionary and reflect the paying of current creditor balances and the fact that about £400 million of the debtor balance was used in the purchase of the gold bullion (a debtor has given gold bullion rather than cash to clear debts). This means that a total of £2,610.000 is not a fundamental operating cash flow and the real ongoing cash flow is about £2 million in six months. Ariana is not going bust soon and Tavsan will be producing profit and cashflow well before Ariana needs to raise any cash.

When Venus is floated off it will be a separate entity and will not need cash from Ariana but will raise its own capital for any mine development.

So I can buy (blame the spell checker)

Once again Ariana seems to have disappointed a lot of investors.

The bad news is that cash and readily convertible current assets have fallen to £6.225 million because Arian has very unwisely invested in further exploration and licence acquisition in pursuit of its ridiculous strategy of investing for the future. It is sad news that Ariana is not likely to go bust in the near future.

More, and even worse, bad news is:

Kiziltepe;

New geophysical survey results from Kiziltepe and Kepez highlighted several new drilling targets in the proximity of known veins systems.

It is expected to define a high-grade Reserve at Kizilcukur project capable of being mined by open-pit methods and then trucked to the Kiziltepe processing plant.

Significant pushbacks at Arzu South and Arzu North are planned.

All this means that, unfortunately, Kiziltepe will continue production for considerably longer than was envisaged. Kiziltepe may well keep producing gold to 2026 and beyond.

Tavsan

Unfortunately the environmentalists lost their court case and Tavsan is well underway to commence full scale operations in 2024. Even worse it has, so far, been funded from the cash currently being generated by Zenit, Tavsan will be built using no or very little debt funding. When Tavsan starts producing 30,000 oz of gold a year the bad news is that it will be generating substantial profits and a strong cash flow from day one as it will not have to pay off loans or high interest charges.

Salinbas

Despite Salinbas only hiving a derisory 1.5 million oz gold reserve the bad news keeps piling in. There has been highly discouraging drilling results from the Salinbas Project, including the longest mineralised intercept ever recorded within the Ardala Cu-Au-Mo Porphyry of 461.8m @ 0.22% Cu + 0.23g/t Au and 155ppm Mo, it is bad enough that Ardala already has a reserve estimate of 66.4Mt @0.44 g/t Au + 0.2%Cu giving an estimated 939,000oz Au + 110,000 t Cu.. In addition, the team successfully drilled the first three holes into the Hizarliyayla prospect, located 9km to the south of Salinbas, and, unfortunately, identified an intermediate sulphidation epithermal base-metal-rich gold system.

The rest

Ariana continues to invest in Western Tethyan Resources, Venus Minerals and Asgard Metals and I am certain, that with Arianas disastrous record in finding and exploiting the reserves held in the JV, that all these projects will be just as disastrous.

Now all this news really fills the naysayers with doom, the JV might actually be in a position for the next few years to be producing about 48,000 oz of gold a year with an estimated profit of around $50 million giving Ariana a projected share of profit of about £11.5 million. Even when Kiziltepe is worked out Tavsan will still give Ariana a profit of $7 million per year for at least another seven years. Araina also says it intends to start paying dividends when Tavsan is producing a strong profit flow.

I say sell so I can me

i have just done a back of *** packet calculation of the value of aau.

venus minerals ipo puts a valuation (after ipo) of about £7.5 million so aau share valued at £2.65 million.

kiziltepe should produce 20 million oz of gold for at least three years at $1,000 profit per oz (aau have 2 years reserves but have indicated that life of mine will be extended) npv about $55 million, aau share $13 million or £10 million.

tavsan should produce 30 million oz of gold for at least 10 years at $1,000 profit per oz, say $50 million build costs still to be incurred then npv is about $162 million, aau share $38 million or £29 million.

total value kiziltepe, tavsan and venus about £41.5 million add in cash in bank gives about £50 million.

so i calculate that the real value of aau just with the projects that are fairly definite is £50 million and that does not take into account the value of salinbas and the other prospects that aau are involved with.

anyone care to give a more detailed (or accurate) valuation.

I must admit that we all think WTF at times.

From todays RNS

Stephen John Bingham now holds 57,643,000 ordinary shares with voting rights in the Company representing 5.04% of total voting rights. His previously reported position was 4.01%.

So Stephen has been busy hoovering up all the shares that have been sold at knock down prices by disillusioned Ariana shareholders. He obviously knows something and believes that there is a positive future for Ariana. I suspect that there may be a few people who have sold shares at the current low prices who might come to regret the decision in the next year or so.

I have only just picked up on this but its a good summary of where KS sees the future for Ariana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9diL7Zkmwlg&t=524s

Hi John

I hope that you are OK, I enjoy our conversations.

I was adding in the existing 20,000 oz from Kiziltepe which should be in production until at least 2026 according to Ariana.

After 2026 I am hopeful that some gold will still come out of Kiziltepe and its satellite pits as recent survey work indicates that extensions to several mined vein systems.

I also believe that Blackburn Rovers will get back into the Premier League so you could say that I am deluded.

Cheers

Tony

I did note that the word pleased was absent and the Board obviously realise that the direction of the company is not one that suites investors looking for short term capital increase or dividends, hence the drop in price.

The Board have taken a longer term strategic position of discovering significant mineral deposits and then levering profit out of them by selling them as is or going into partnership and then selling (as the current JV), the problem is that this is a long term reward strategy.

One issue is that it is hard to see the value of all the investments that Ariana is making in prospecting new mineral resources and thus this is not reflected in the share price.

I firmly believe that Tavsan, assuming a positive outcome of the current legal situation, will make a significant difference to Ariana as it will then have the profit share of a 50,000 oz a year mining operation for a few years ahead.

KS is still a relatively young man and will be looking at the value of Ariana in the medium to long term unlike me and, I suspect ,you.

Hoping that Tavsan gets the OK and that this pushes the share price up to the point where an exit can be made with some profit.

I am usually quite optimistic, I have to be as a Blackburn Rovers supporter in exile, well there is always next season (or year for Ariana).

Further to the marketing of subsidiary companies with significant resources.

Lastly, we were very pleased to pay the last tranche of our Special Dividend to shareholders in October, thus completing a process initiated in late 2019. Accordingly, we have come to view this moment as the closure of the first chapter in the life of Ariana, having successfully brought our most advanced projects in Türkiye to the point of providing very meaningful returns to our shareholders. We are now on the hunt for new projects on the international stage which may

be developed in similar ways, to ensure that further returns may continue to be paid well into the future.

And

In Australia, our nascent discovery fund, Asgard Metals, achieved a number of milestones of its own. In addition to completing three substantial investments, it also established a trading account through which it may participate in corporate offers or trade securities on the ASX market.

We are resolutely focused on upscaling the Company by pursuing bold objectives. In particular, we are keen to advance on larger projects capable of supporting the Company on its journey towards becoming a mid-tier mine developer. As part of this process, we are going to pursue support from investors from further afield and will be marketing the Company accordingly. In parallel with this, we are undertaking several project and jurisdictional reviews with the aim of securing a significant new flagship asset around which the future of the Company may continue to be built.

This does not necessarily mean that there will be share dilution in Ariana itself. Ariana does not need any new finance in the short to medium term. Ariana is a prospecting company and as it stands would not be of much interest to other mining companies, although the prospects once worked up would be of interest. The significant new flagship could easily be the brining of one of the subsidiaries to the market to develop a JV mine if the resources are significant much as the current JV.

Support from investors further afield may be a strategy to get investors from the countries that Ariana is active in to invest in Ariana by marketing the company in those countries.

Time will tell just where the current strategy leads, but as usual there is a lot of jumping to negative conclusions.

The big question mark is Tavsan and if this goes ahead OK then in 12 months time things will look a lot better.