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1. Given the TREO (total rare earth oxides) figures that Rainbow have released (47% to 67%), the narrow veins currently being mined must be almost pure bastnasite, with only a little monazite and a few impurities mixed in. 2. If the Kiyenzi lopolith checks out, all 500,000 tonnes of it, there's every reason to suppose that it is made up of more or less the same stuff as the narrow veins (and the boulders discovered downslope nearby). It really would be a billion dollar rock - even using pretty pessimistic assumptions, I calculate that Rainbow would make more than $400m pure profit from simply digging it out, grinding it up, and selling it as concentrate. 3. The four carbonatite pipes (intrusions of magmatic material) also being drilled will contain at least 50% carbonatite material (by definition) plus silicates. We can hope for yet undiscovered rare earth mineralisation as vein systems on the aureole of the pipes and also rare earth presence inside the pipes. But, inevitably, this will grade lower TREO than the current vein systems, and it will probably require a more industrialised kind of mining and a more complex processing plant. It's just possible that the carbonatite pipes also contain some other valuable elements in commercial quantities - such as niobium, tantalum, or thorium. 4. The carbonatite pipes are sizeable objects - the biggest has a diameter of approx. 2700 metres. Their thickness for now is unknown, but judging by comparable examples, they could easily drop down 100m in a rough funnel shape. So though the grade may be lower, the actual amount of rare earths the pipes contain may be very large. As always, grateful for any feedback. The company is presenting next week (22nd, I think) at a Proactive Investors evening. It's just possible we may get an RNS with partial drill results before that. It would certainly give them something to talk about!

More flim-flam. Honestly, it seems to me that crucial information is being deliberately withheld from shareholders by Berkeley. Why are they not moving towards mine construction as quickly as possible, given that the financing is in place? Why is the date given for the completion of the mine so vague, and why is it constantly slipping backwards? Is there a problem with the final "radioactivity" licence they apparently require from the CSN. If so, what is the timeline for a decision on this licence? And what are the chances of success? Is this all somehow linked to the activities of "Stop Uranio"? You don't raise the money to build a mine and then slow-pedal its construction without a very good reason!

Accidentally found whilst attempting to research the possible rare-earth mineral content of the suspected carbonatite pipes: https://www.healing-crystals-for-you.com/bastnasite.html Apparently, crystal bastnasite can help turn your dreams into reality!

I'd reckon it's a near certainty that Cora will find gold at Telekedougou, given the described geology and the intense artisanal mining activity. (Digging for gold by hand is hard; nobody digs two huge trenches for nothing!). IMO, the only real questions are how much gold Cora will find, and at what grades. But, given that Telekedougou is so close to the Yanfolila plant, even a small find at a relatively low grade will be worth mining. It's a win-win situation for both Cora and Hummingbird.

I think all of us are just waiting for the drilling results and the Q1 production update due in April.

Thanks for all the replies to my post! FWIW, I'm interested in Bacanora long term, but not quite convinced by the current sales pitch or the lowish 25% IRR. Also, I think there will be a lower and less risky entry point if and when BCN manage to raise the equity to build the mine. So, for now, for me, it's a wait and see. As regards EMH, I don't think the mine will ever be built. After all, most projected mines never are. A combination of management inexperience, Czech political problems, untried extraction methodology, high upfront capital costs, and a low IRR (only 21%) will kill the project. KENV (or whatever it is called now) is simply a run-a-mile don't-touch-it-with-a-bargepole hyped-up piece of garbage. I wouldn't trust Giles Clarke as far as I could throw him. All in all, it seems to me that people looking to invest in lithium stocks might do well to look at the ASX and TSX, as well AIM. IMO, far too many people on here support their stocks uncritically, like they were their local football team. The most valuable posts on these boards are often the negative, contrarian ones.

OK, I agree. HUM's current share price is beyond ridiculous based on its fundamentals, but CORA is pretty cheap, too. Only dabbling here, but heavily invested in HUM.

I just spent an hour looking at the numbers here. Honestly, it's a lot of money to raise compared to the current market cap of BCN, and the return on investment (IRR) isn't that great. Add in the difficulties of Mexico and the questionable reputation of the BoD, and I'm wondering if this fund raise will actually succeed. Of course, it helps that Bacanora are looking to mine a battery metal; but is this enough?

This isn't meant to wind anybody up, but just to say the other rare earth mining stock listed in London, RBW (Rainbow Rare Earths) has gone from 14p to 18.5p in the last few weeks. (Company already in production, ThyssenKrupp as off take partner, literally huge exploration upside, management own 40% of company, Legal & General and Miton institutional investors aboard. Please DYOR...)

CORA market cap = 6.7m pounds. Getting silly cheap.

Good to know our big buyer is still here and willing to pay a whole 19p per share. Now we know that, hopefully we'll see some upward pressure on the share price today.

Hi Darola - Thanks. I think you're right that the risk - reward ratio is pretty good here; especially given the experience and proven discovery record of the management team. A decent size discovery near Hummingbird's Yanfolila mine would indeed make for a (very) quick route to production for Cora. I'm confident from the info already published that in the medium term Sanakagoro can be developed into a decent medium-sized low-cost stand-alone mine - not unlike Yanfolila is now. Anyway, at this price, I'm buying.

Hi again Jimi! Assuming the lopolith is what we all hope it is, I don't think it would take very long to dig it out of the ground - and certainly not 25 years. The "lopolith" measures about 100 metres by 80 metres (i.e. 2 football pitches) and it's maybe ten metres thick and it's buried about ten metres down in the ground. I reckon that you could easily dig that out in a couple of years, even with only primitive earth-moving equipment. And it wouldn't be hard to expand the existing plant to grind it up into saleable concentrate, either. No, the bigger danger is oversupplying the market. Annual world production of rare earths is (I think!) about 200,000 tonnes. Assuming the lopolith grades at 50% TREO, it would yield about 250,000 tonnes on its own - i.e more than a year's total world supply. I know the market for rare earths is expanding, and many end-users would welcome non-Chinese supply, but how much material could you release annually onto the market without collapsing prices? All in all, I reckon that if the drilling is successful, there will be a small placing in May / June to fund the drilling required for a JORC. But I'm OK with that as I imagine the placing price will be at a lot higher than today's share price. Also, since management own 40% of the company, they'll want to limit any dilution as much as possible. (N.B. this post ignores the other four drill targets - the carbonatite pipes. Not because I think they won't contain any rare earths, but because I think they will be more complicated and expensive to mine.)

Hi Jimithebrsush! Yep, the President of the D.R.C. (Congo) has just signed into law a new mining charter, despite being visited by a delegation of top Western mining executives only last week. This will affect FTSE 100 companies like Randgold and Glencore who have big operations there. In fact, you can already see the effect of the new law on Randgold's recent share price, and there may be worse to come. However, I can't see any linkage with Burundi. Remember, Rainbow is Burundi's only Western-style mining operation, so the government need it to be a success to attract other investors. And relations between hopelessly war-torn Congo and Burundi aren't even all that good anyway.

Hi OdL! Not for the first time I find I agree with you. All in all, I think management have progressed this operation brilliantly so far, and the offtake deal with ThyssenKrupp has provided Rainbow with a sales network, income guarantees, and a great deal of credibility. Anyway, the coming drill results should give us an indication of how big this company can grow. I'm hoping that 10K tonnes of concentrate per year ends up being only a fairly small percentage of RBW's output.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but does anybody know when the next drilling results are expected here? Many thanks.

Surely the reason for the current share price doldrums is that there will be a big equity placing here soon, and that the market believes it will be at less than the current share price. My own guess is at 80p-85p. Bacanora need to raise a lot of money, and I just can't see it being at a premium to the current SP.

Now 147p and with an imminent 10 cent dividend. Based on fundamentals, this seems like a bargain to me, so I've just added. Why are all gold miners (not just Centamin) so cheap right now? It doesn't make sense to me.

Just to give another perspective on Acacia's troubles in Tanzania, here is a witness statement from the Toronto News. There are dozens of similar stories: Name withheld, Tarime District, Mara Region, Tanzania My younger brother was a picky-picky driver [a local form of motorbike transportation]. In 2011, his friends asked him to bring them to the [local] pit to search for gold rocks at night. When they got there, they heard shooting by the police mine guards. My brother was shot. The bullet went through his chest and out his back. He called out, �I�m dying,� but his friends were chased away by the police. His friends called me to tell me what happened. I went to the pit to look for my brother. But the police accused me of being an intruder and beat me so badly that I had to go to the clinic. My brother�s body [had been] brought by the police to the same clinic. They wanted us to bury him right away. But a local politician was there and said you can�t just remove the body without a postmortem. Later they took my brother�s body to the hospital. The next day the police who guard the mine pressured our family to take the body for burial right away. But we hesitated. We said we were not ready for the burial. The hospital would not give us the postmortem. They told us to bury the body. Later, when we asked for his death certificate, the hospital wanted to change the date on it as a condition to getting it. We never got the death certificate or the postmortem. The police who guard the mine threatened me. We just stopped talking about it.

No, I don't have any targets for you - my crystal ball broke a few years ago. But put yourself in the shoes of our institutional investors - Legal & General and Miton. They wouldn't normally bother with the shares of a small miner running a glorified pick and shovel operation in Burundi; and certainly not for the sake of a measly 20% upside. No, they are thinking 100% upside, at least. And since one institution (Miton?) is seemingly still buying at 18.50p, that must mean that institution's analyst thinks these shares will hit 37p. Sorry if this post reads a bit rampy! For all their resources, institutions can be and have been wrong about individual shares, of course.