Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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GR is quoted as saying in an RNS at the time “Not often is a grade of 4.24% Li2O seen in drill core” There would have been Tantalum present too no doubt as there would have been in all the cores. But to date it's overall extent is undisclosed.
The additional strikes identified in SOZ’s 01 to 03 along with the main strikes extension ran up to the boundaries of the current licensed area and by interpolation far beyond.
This as well as a “walkover survey” of the adjoining land by experts could well have encouraged Prem to apply for the EPO we're now seeing.
In a Proactive interview you may recall GR also saying that he believed the additional EPO area was on strike as it was quite a significant and encouraging comment.
If you take the additional area of over 20,000ha under application as having a similar density and grade of Li2O then Zulu if developed could likely be proven to be the largest hard rock lithium mine in the world. That's how big Zulu has the potential to be.
What the EPO area will do is give Prem more flexibility and options on how it develops the asset and obviously a more profitable mine because of the economy of scale.
Just a little more patience needed that's all here! I'm in no doubt the Mining Affairs Committee have recommended and approved Prems application all that remains now is the boss to sign it!
GLA and fingers crossed.
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There can be no doubt that Prem has several very enviable assets in its portfolio.
Of the ones taking centre stage clearly Zulu must have the most potential. The others include RHA and Circum with one in the pipeline which is MNH in whatever form it takes.
But as incredible as Zulu might become it may yet be trumped in the fullness of time by the REE opportunity Prem has at Katete. We'll see.
Although the company hasn't said officially if your close to the parties involved you may have noticed signs that there's news due on all the four assets I've mentioned. Not quite soon but very soon.Very soon indeed!!
Over this weekend I'll try to post on all four opportunities currently taking centre stage and support them as much as I can with research and maths.
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In some ways RHA & Zulu make strange bedfellows on Prems books.
Lithium on the one hand is the lightest metal on earth. It has an atomic number of just 3 it's just one of three metals that float on water. The others being the other two being sodium and potassium. You should see the significance of the point if gold is encountered in Zulus EPO. Au has very similar properties to Tungsten with atomic numbers and densities being relatively close.
On the other hand Tungsten is one of the heaviest. Not only does it have one of the highest atomic numbers at 74 but it's also one of the densest at 0.70 lbs/cu and the two fundamentals make it a real heavyweight. Lead is known to be one of the heaviest too but even though its atomic number is 84 in units of the same physical size Tungsten because of its density weighs 1.74 times heavier.
So if you recall those RHA photos showing full sacks if the WO3 concentrate each one of those would have weighed roughly the same as three or four family cars.
What utter nonsense and a waste of time I hear some say on reading this. I get that. But for me, it helps me to appreciate how difficult it must be to mine underground and extract buy hand. It helps me to understand what more mechanical assistance would mean and what a difference it would make.
Strangely ironic although weights are at the opposite end of the scale their market prices are very similar.
Tungsten at $225 to $240mtu/APT is therefore $22,500 to $24,000/metric tonne. And Li2O at about $10,000/t LCE is therefore $10,000 x 2.473 is $24,730/t. 2.473 being the conversion factor from LCE to Li2O
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The rest of this post relates to RHA. It'll be boring to quite a few no doudt. Especially LTH's as I think they will probably know more about the mine than I do. Apologies upfront to those but hopefully I can jog a few memories of the events over the last seven years or so anyway.
As an overview RHA is located approximately 20 km south-east of Hwange and 270 km north of Bulawayo in the prospective multi-commodity Kamativi Tin Belt in north-west Zimbabwe. It sits in its own licence area of 1800ha or 4400 acres which is roughly five times bigger than Zulu under its current license area and slightly bigger than the Scilly Isles for perspective.
Picture the scene of a disused and long abandoned mine in the middle of the Zimbabwean countryside as it was when Prem first saw it in 2012. The site was overgrown and the old shaft there must have been like an old well full of foul smelling rainwater that had found its way into the shaft via the adits . The shaft was accessible via just two adits. One facing north and one facing south of the shaft. They were relatively small but clearly visible. They still exist and although modified are still in use today I believe.
Crossing the mining area was a low ridge approximately 850 m long and 300 m wide standing about 120 m above its surroundings.
There was known to be mineralised ore body that included wolframite and copper in a strike approximately 400 m long and 150 m wide. Grades of the WO3 were found to improve in a south easterly direction towards the existing shaft and at depth. Seven Lodes were identified and they were previously exploited early in part in the mines 100 year history.
The old mine workings were in the form of an underground mine the two adits, an open pit, caved stopes, trenches, roads and rocks that occupied the surface. Tailings and dumps were located on the north and south sides of the ridge and complete the picture.
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RHA comprised 50 mineral claim blocks in its 1800Ha overall area. There were 10 owned by Prem and 40 under option.
Intermittent small scale mining was carried out at both RHA and the adjacent much smaller Tung mine (which Prem had an option over at the time) between 1931 and 1979. The mines jointly produced 1,247 tonnes of wolframite concentrate at an average concentrate grade of 65% APT. So perhaps 80,000mtu was produced at RHA which today would have a sale price of just $210m.
The mine workings were almost entirely carried out during the 1930s where the underground mine which was accessed via the two adits in the sides of the ridge and a single vertical shaft down to the 845m level. Some open pitting was also carried out mainly in the western part of the strike.
During the mid to late 1970s Falconbridge Ltd, trading as Blanket Mines in Zimbabwe, carried out underground geological mapping and extensive channel sampling on the accessible parts of the underground workings, principally on the 926, 895 and the lower 859 levels. Their exploration work had to be curtailed for some reason.
But undoubtedly this mapping together with any previous data would have formed an integral part of Prems due diligence and would have helped in the preparation of RHA’s first Scoping Study which was to be completed later in 2013.
Prem joined the AIM market mid December in 2012 and by that time it had purchased RHA in a j.v. with the Governments Fund NIEEF by necessity
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The j.v. had been formed under a Letter of Intent at the time and Prem through its subsidiary owned 49% of the mine in keeping with the indigenisation law that was in place.
Early in 2013 saw further drill results announced as RHA was working towards a SAMREC code compliant resource and it’s PEA or Scoping Study as it’s also known.
In August that year Prem announced RHA’s PEA that confirmed its SAMREC compliant resource.This was the first milestone for the mine under it’s j.v. ownership.
The study was minimalist and simply based on an extension of Lode 2 out of the 7 Lodes identified at the mine. Lode 2 then became known as Lodes 2A for the original length & 2B for it’s extension.
Nevertheless the Assessment confirmed the economic potential and Lode 2 in isolation demonstrated it would support a tungsten mining operation with an annual Run of Mine rate of around 192kt’s from the open pit and underground mining strategy over a six year Life Of Mine from just $13.5m Capex.
Other projected fundamentals such as an NPV of $118m an IRR of over 300% and Free Cash Flows in excess of $20m/annum were equally encouraging at the time.
Tungsten prices were then almost twice what they are now at around $400/mtu APT and that figure was the one used in the SS. All very acceptable if not attractive
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Most significantly the really good news ensued. It came from discovering significant and ultra high WO3 grades in the new Lode extension later in 2013.
Further drilling was carried out until December that year. Some extremely high grades were identified as well as many new WO3 veins in the Lodes. The results were then RNS’d on 13th March 2014.
These drilling results were stella and they rocked the market to its core as no doubt some long term shareholders invested at the time will recall.
The grades were consistently higher than had been previously identified. But the highest was a world record testing 35% WO3. More than 350kg/t. Simply incredible and jaw dropping. Hitherto the j.v. partners were looking at grades of 0.8% or 8kg/t as exceptional.
The new Lodes were categorised as Lodes 1E.1W.1FW & 1FE and were announced in a further RNS on May 1 2014. The discoveries were to increase the resource by a further 1.3mt’s at an average grade of over 1% or 10kg's/t. A huge increase and the overall effect on RHA was transformational.
This is what the press had to say:-
“The measured and indicated resource has been upped by a staggering 957% ( yes 957% )to 1.55mil tonnes at a composite grade of 8.0 kg/t WO3, while there is 1.2mil tonnes at a composite grade of 9.7kg/t WO3 in the inferred category.”
http://zimbabweinvestor.com/premier-african-minerals-soars-on-massive-zimbabwe-resource-upgrade-agrees-ethiopia-bridging-loan/
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The period that followed and leading up to the time when RHA was put on care & maintenance in January 2018 would see a myriad of further changes to the resource and mining plan. The changes wern’t all brought about just by the ongoing route in APT prices and the difficulty of raising debt finance especially but those two factors were clearly significant and had quite an influence.
Mostly they came about from RHA gaining a much better understanding of the mineralisation on the site through further exploration and drilling campaigns. An understanding that has been costly and time consuming to the frustration os shareholders to say the least.
I could go on and on but let's fast forward to where are now. Now we have a much better understanding of the resource and in particular where the higher grades of WO3 are located in the underground mine.
Although the existing pit is covered by a layer of blown in silt and debris we know from drill results that the strike runs generally in an East/ West direction and the WO3 grade improves on strike towards the existing shaft and at the same time at depth as new mining blocks have been identified.
We also know that that is a small amount of WO3 located in the old tailings and that that is readily accessible and easy to deliver to the ROM pad to compliment the rest of the WO3 from underground.
Although Prem haven't disclosed a new mining plan yet it seems the mine will be restarted more or less where it left off. However with the added bonus that it’ll be powered by electricity from the grid rather that the three existing generators.
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Hopefully with higher grades being accessible from the newly cut stopes the mine will be profitable shortly after it restarts.
As with any mine RHA needs to be fully optimised and then run in a steady state.
When the mine restarts mining will be restricted to underground via the old shafts and adits. The anticipated fundamentals include a ROM of 6kt's/month at a grade of around 0.7% at least hopefully. WO3 will not be produced initially by mining the open pit, That will come later when the adits have been remodelled I believe.
But I like to think of the mine ramping up in at least three phases this being only the first.
The second one I see as the construction phase of the new decline shaft. It shouldn't be too difficult to positing the shaft over the wolframite strike.
In so doing the material excavated which contains WO3 could also be delivered to the ROM pad for processing. Again to compliment the ore mined underground.
It's not been decided yet whether to opt for a conveyor extract system which I happen to prefer or to extract using driven motorised trucks.
Shaft construction using explosives should not affect the ongoing mining operations and should take about nine months to a year to complete down to the 850 levels and lower. I'm not sure we'll see the shaft extended to much below an 800 level but its possible even higher grades are there.
Simple maths tells me the WO3 delivered to the ROM pad could be nearer 8,000t's to 9,000 t's/month without very much grade drop off during this phase. So quite an attractive increase.
To completely optimise the mine it will need further investment to construct the new semi automated decline shaft as I say. Without it the mine that's capable of processing 40kt's or so of ore a month will be restricted/
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Once the shaft is built it will not only allow the mining rate to be increased to more than double from underground but also allow unfettered access to mine the pit.
When that's done in say a years time.the ROM should be around 40kts /month and subject to APT prices we should see a contribution to Prems MC from it of perhaps £60m even at todays suppressed APT prices. If APT prices were to be around the $400/mtu APT forecast by many industry experts it will be an extremely attractive asset for Prem. Perhaps as much as 1p on Prems SP as things stand.
So FWIW I think we'll see Commercial Production reached within a month or so of the mine restarting and at that point RHA's impairment should be removed. Also at that point too I have Prems fair value of 49% of the assets at no less than $20m which represents 0.15p on its SP.
In cash terms Prem should begin to receive an income under its newly negotiated Rental Agreement and its new Management Contact incorporated in the head Shareholder Agreement on RHA once the mine restarts. From the old agreement I have those combined to be over $750k/annum. But I'm not entirely sure.
Payments to Prem under its Loan Agreement needs to be considered too but as yet the details are undisclosed..
I hope some of this is of interest. But more than that I hope "RHA finally has "its day in the sun" as GR tells us.
AIMHO and fingers crossed.
My ode to James Goozzee with my absolute and utmost respect!:-
IF you can keep your shares when all about you
are selling theirs James and blaming others,
If you can trust yourself when others doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
If you can stand being lied about but don't deal in lies
If you can bear being hated but don't give way to hating,
And yet not look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream and not make dreams your master James;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with any drops in the SP or disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by others to make a trap for the Trolls,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And build 'em up again with worn out tools.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss in Prem
And lose nearly all yet start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sine within you James
To serve your views long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing left within you;
Except the will which says 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with other posters and keep your virtue,
Or walk with CEO's but not lose the common touch,
If neither Trolls nor friendly posters here can hurt you Jame,
If all men count on you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of posting fun
Yours will be a huge gain from Prem from the sale of the Lithium found within it;
And - what is more - you'll be be the first pi "Premillionaire" and very soon now my son!
GLA all sincere shareholders of which James is most definately one!
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I'm a long term holder in Prem and like so many LTH's I've been underwater with my investment for quite some time. It's been a difficult stock to hold I must admit.
So I know only too well what it feels like to be in a loss situation and it's certainly far from nice! Even more so if you're late in your working life or retired as I am now and have less time to make any losses back.
I used to share my thoughts quite a lot on the BB's but in Prems case I decided to stopt
The BB's and social media became increasingly full of keyboard warriors who relentlessly and openly criticised fellow posters for not seeing things their way. Or they continually blamed Prems management for their losses all day seemed madness to me.
Anyway in the relative peace and quiet over a recent weekend I thought I'd share some of my own current views at what looks to be a pivotal time in Prem's development.
Prems been in the Doldrums for various reasons for roughly two years now and for the last four months wallowing in the mire for most of the time as they say.
To put that into perspective for most of the last four months Prems Market Cap has been less than the current value it holds in RHA's plant. So not much more than £2m. So that too has been utter and sheer madness.
There was lots of scaremongering about placings and even talk of Prems bankruptcy. Perhaps I was naive but wit my qualifications and knowledge of the Insolvency Act I never saw bankruptcy as being on the cards at all. Nowhere near it in fact despite what some who purported to know better were saying.
Ostensibly there are only two tests for companies to pass to achieve an Auditor's "going concern" status. One being the overall asset value exceeding the value of overall liabilities. And the other being the ability to pay debts as and when they fall due. It’s that simple!
Any other minor tests or variants to the two I've mentioned you can forget. Of course in Prems case it passed them with ease.
A reasonable value of assets outstripped the value it’s liabilities many fold and with that kind of ratio Prem was always able to raise all the cash it needed to pay its debts quite easily if and whenever it needs do even at short notice regardless of it’s the cash balance in it’s treasury.
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Significantly but not often mentioned Prem didn't carry any debt for most of the period I’m talking about and it's only of late that it's undertaken a "friendly loan" for $350k.
Again significantly it's been a creditor on RHA's books for many $m's and it's now a creditor as a lender to MNH for $1m too. So effectively a nett creditor overall to others with no debt. Find me another like it on AIM as they say!
So in fact unlike any other miner in its class on AIM it has huge potential and as I say negative debt ratios. Negative gearing if you like. A very significant advantage to most and a huge tick in any savvy investors checklist. Take a minute to think about it!
Like most progressive companies Prems development will follow a logarithmic curve. So with it's development rate slowing the further it moves along it and being initially at its fastest. The opposite in fact to an exponential track which undoubtedly from here investors will be seeing it's earnings follow.
What sets Prem apart from most others though is it's starting point on the development curve. It started from a negative asset base. Most others do not. That in itself sets it streets apart from it’s piers as does the potential in its assets.
We can see the benefit from this in Prems position now. Prems Market Cap was no more than £2m three months ago and it's now at about £14m. So even though it's only just started and has huge potential it's 7 bagged in little over three weeks! The SP would have done the same but for dilution so it’s been just over a 5 bagger!
So if you had invested £10k when the SP was on its lows just a few weeks ago would have bought you 40m shares or so and those you would be able to sell those same shares because of their high demand on Monday for over £50k when the market opens. But why on earth would you when there’s groundbreaking news about to fall!
I've been buying heavily in the lows but to my mind Prem is only just taking its initial steps along it’s development curve. So there's no way I'm even thinking of selling any yet. There's huge potential here over the next few months in and I'll be adding whenever I can! You can be assured of it!
GLA Genuine holders.
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In recent post I touched on the possibility of gold mining becoming an activity in Zulu's EPO area.
Please DYOR but I hope this data helps:-
Zimbabwe has to date recorded over 6000 Au prospects and is one of the richest countries in Africa in terms of gold resources.
Most of the systematic gold mining there ceased in the 1930's and old disused and abandoned mines are littered over the resource.
900 deposits produced in excess of 100kg of Au each. In today's money that's over $6m each. A familiar number no doubt!
Over 90% of the deposits occur on the Archean Greenstone belts and the immediate surrounding Granitoids.
The Greenstone belt is the one I mentioned and I said it crossed Zulu’s EPO area.
I can't be sure but looking at the geographical maps it appears to occupy over 50%!!!!
This Greenstone belt is the richest in Au deposits in the world.
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The new Government recognises the importance of this as an industry and are targeting 40t's annual production albeit running behind schedule at the moment.
When the indigenisation laws changes the year before last so did new ownerships. Unlike diamonds and platinum new owners are now allowed 100% ownership of Au deposits.
I hope some of this helps to understand what we're looking at here!
Fingers crossed and GLA genuine shareholders.
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In my post late yesterday I touched on the possibility of gold mining becoming an activity in Zulu's EPO area.
Please DYOR but I hope this data helps:-
Zimbabwe has to date recorded over 6000 Au prospects and is one of the richest countries in Africa in terms of gold resources.
Most of the systematic gold mining there ceased in the 1930's and old disused and abandoned mines are littered over the resource.
900 deposits produced in excess of 100kg of Au each. In today's money that's over $6m each. A familiar number no doubt!
Over 90% of the deposits occur on the Archean Greenstone belts and the immediate surrounding Granitoids.
The Greenstone belt is the one I mentioned yesterday when I said it crossed Zulu’s EPO area.
I can't be sure but looking at the geographical maps it appears to occupy over 50%!!!!
This Greenstone belt is the richest in Au deposits in the world.
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The new Government recognises the importance of this as an industry and are targeting 40t's annual production albeit running behind schedule at the moment.
When the indigenisation laws changes the year before last so did new ownerships. Unlike diamonds and platinum new owners are now allowed 100% ownership of Au deposits.
I hops some of this helps to understand what we're looking at here!
Fingers crossed and GLA genuine shareholders.
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Bottompicker I'll try to answer your question as best I can.
Even without the EPO area being awarded Zulu has the potential to be an enviable mine of world class standards on my view.
If the resource estimate contained on Zulu's current licensed area is anywhere near right we're looking at an estimated resource 160mt's of Pegmatite strikes containing an average grade of 1.06% Li2O.
Assuming a minimalist situation of a Run Of Mine (ROM) of 2mt's /annum it would give the mine a working life (LOM) of 80 years. Again a very enviable situation by any standards.
A ROM 2m tonnes would produce approximately 210kt's of >6% premium quality Spodumene and 157kt's of >5% Petalite if the proportions consistent with the Scoping Study. Viz :-
Spodumene.
2mt’s x 1.06% (grade) = 21200t’s Li2O x 90% (metallurgical recovery) x 2.473 (converting from Li2O to LCE) = 47184t’s LCE X 67% (proportion) =31613t’s Spodumene X 16.66 (6%Spodumene) = 210kt’s Spodumene Concentrate
Petalite
2mt’s x 1.06% (grade) = 21200t’s Li2O x 90% (metallurgical recovery) x 2.473 (converting from Li2O to LCE) = 47184t’s LCE X 33% (proportion) =31613t’s Petalite X 20 (5% Petalite) = 157kt’s Petalite Concentrate.
Even at todays LCE prices we're looking at annual revenue in the region of $250m and a net profit of $80m. The Market Cap of a mine hang those fundamentals based upon an earnings metric assessment is going to be around $800m or £650m at todays exchange rate using a reasonable P/E ratio of 10.