Member Info for Tornadotony

Most freshwater demand in the region is from the agricultural sector, but, in a bold move to address the country’s water scarcity, Chile has banned fresh water use in mining.

While the implications of the decision are uncertain, many desalination plants, mostly in the Atacama Desert, have now been initiated to turn the country’s limitless seawater supply into water suitable for the mining sector. In late 2019, desalinated seawater made up 20% of mining water use in Chile, the world’s largest copper-producing country. Twelve large-scale desalination plants are now treating water for the sector, with 15 more in the planning stage. Seawater use in Chilean mining is expected to triple between 2018 and 2029 with a mean annual growth rate of approximately 12%.

The technology in this area has developed substantially in the past 10 years. The plan therefore has to factor all this in. HoC has set up a separate company to look after the Volcan project.

We have slipped into a misspelling somewhere which I repeated. Correction is in the title as other mines around the globe are Vulcan.

Hope your right wasa. HZM did so well to get all the funding in place for a year when producers are facing the prospect of a horrible recession. The time HZM wants to sell actual product a recovery should be underway.

Sotolo

The answer to your question is that need a plan to get water supplies to the mine. How they do this has to be in the project leaders plan. The solution also needs to ensure that other water users are not adversely impacted. Tony

Equals 70% de-risked. Shanta holds the highest position in my portfolio and just maybe I have got that call right. Once completed it will be just the gold price determining where the Shanta share price will land in 2023.

China is in a right mess. Xi has gradually assumed total power through 24 separate commissions and micromanages most of the directives. Xi unlike previous Chinese leaders did not pass examines to get into University as he gained entry as a soldier of the party. It has been commented that in his thesis work in chemical engineering that most of the material was plagiarised. Xi is very thin skinned and stubborn and does not tolerate any criticism. He regularly imprisons business leaders and some have been ordered to serve 18 years after complaining of Covid-19 lockdowns. Private business in these circumstances is seized by the party and resold to Xi or his friends that keep him in power. Xi eventually will catch up with North Korea and having a restrictive society. Xi appointees are now on most company boards and they directly interfere with company operations.
With so much central control, innovation in China is getting crushed and significant basic business blunders abound and there is considerable fear to speak out on anything. It has been reported this morning that ministries are now meeting and establish plans for China to proceed on a future war footing with full sanctions from the West. As China slows with its GDP and collapsing housing market of 30% in a year, the usual dead cat tactic of having something else to blame it on and distract its people is being sought. Tony

Reference: The Centennial Issue Foreign Affairs September 2022 Age of Uncertainty Volume 101 Number 5 and other sources this week.

hear instead of here.

I have written to the company about the permit. I am not sure if they know themselves when they might here. A new prime Minister is to be in post in September.

Source of most of my previous comments is from Foreign Affairs Centennial Issue September 2022 The age of Uncertainty Volume 101 number 5. (As some people like to have sources).

China is in a right mess. Xi has gradually assumed total power through 24 separate commissions and micromanages most of the directives. Xi unlike previous Chinese leaders did not pass examines to get into University as he gained entry as a soldier of the party. It has been commented that in his thesis work in chemical engineering that most of the material was plagiarised. Xi is very thin skinned and stubborn and does not tolerate any criticism. He regularly imprisons business leaders and some have been ordered to serve 18 years after complaining of Covid-19 lockdowns. Private business in these circumstances is seized by the party and resold to Xi or his friends that keep him in power. Xi eventually will catch up with North Korea and having a restrictive society. Xi appointees are now on most company boards and they directly interfere with company operations.
With so much central control, innovation in China is getting crushed and significant basic business blunders abound and there is considerable fear to speak out on anything. It has been reported this morning that ministries are now meeting and establish plans for China to proceed on a future war footing with full sanctions from the West. As China slows with its GDP and collapsing housing market of 30% in a year, the usual dead cat tactic of having something else to blame it on and distract its people is being sought. The West will soon need its own source of rare earths and hence why Rainbow and others need to proceed at God's speed. Tony

20% of the share price is cash in the bank. Excludes Q3 earnings.

Thanks LBW

As a backdrop of course rare earth prices have been volatile to exaggerate peaks and trough. The share price is now below the time when things were falling apart in South Africa back in July 2021. The UK currency has depreciated around 15% against the USD. Governments thought fracking would be the answer in 2014 and it has taken two round of bankruptcy for people to understand what happens on mismanaging an energy sector. Rare earths went bust in 2011-12 in USA and I am not sure if China has really produced an improvement of any kind for its country either. At some point societies everywhere will ask for a proper managed approach to energy transition and except that energy storage is a vital component and diversification is vital along with secure supply chains. The market has to be managed more sensibly than we have at the moment if not every venture and aspect of our lives is adversely impacted. Tony

Freedom

Two years ago it was probably the same geo quantities on reserves. The really big issue is having the permit extensions granted on the Peruvian mines. Once this goes ahead, inferred resources get converted into measured resources and further into reserves. Immaculada in particular will be worked up into a 10 year life of mine. In theory this would give 70% of the existing resource output for another 4 years. Amarillo essentially deals with 25% of the drop out of old mines. The company needs to do something with Vulcan to support a declining Immaculada in the last 6 years and whatever they can do with SNIP which delivers around 50,000 ounces of gold per year. SNIP ideally replaces Immaculada going from 70% to 56% and Vulcan comes on line and drops all the old mines out completely. We then have something like a CEY open pit at Sukari with SNIP adding like some high underground rates. Overall, HOC can do okay if gold finds it way back above $1800 an ounce in a couple of months time. This is all opinion and HOC is small long term hold for me. Tony

https://mmta.co.uk/2022/08/26/pensana-ramps-up-rare-earth-plans/

https://www.whyafrica.co.za/rainbow-rare-earths-in-sa-is-whyafricas-pick-of-the-week/

Angel's latest target is 43p. DP is now SmartP, a far better handle and a different style as well.

The Centennial Issue Foreign Affairs September/October 2022
Volume 101 Number 1
The Age of Uncertainty

It was interesting reading as I went through it. Some of the contributions give an insight where things may unfold next.

Tony

Some takeaways.
1. The debt annual interest was 9% on the deal so I gather. Benchmark for Pensana.
2. If Hastings fail to deliver in 2024 they apparently lose 34% of the company apparently to their backer. However, they protect themselves to a degree on what Chinese manufacturers are currently doing.
3. The Hastings mines have worked up the some resources to reserves, but the resources are at lower grades for REOs compared to those held by Pensana. Angola mines that Pensana has are fairly similar overall to Hastings with NdPr with some COOLA additions to possibly add later on, but Angola Government owns 19%.
4. Pensana Saltend is largely focussed on windfarms especially recycling magnets and for autos and robots. NEO has expertise in water industry, medical applications and an array of specialist fields and some of the Pensana market to be served in North America. Neo may want to takeover assets that might appear or develop in Europe as said to be their strategic plan and some features about Pensana are not currently planned to be replicated anywhere else from what I can find out thus far.
5. Market capacity can probably welcome Pensana, Hastings, Rainbow Rare and Arufura with further upgrades from existing suppliers providing China serves its own market demands and those they regard as friendly allied countries to their philosophy especially after 2025.
6. The entire sector is a hot area for innovation and any additional supply is likely to find many new applications to deliver future productivity gains.
7. If Pensana does not get supported with a bond at Saltend it would serve proof that Brexit was an utter failure where the UK given real opportunities chose to do nothing instead that could have any real impact.
8. It is uncertain what the military applications maybe needed in particular for rare earths.

Finally, let us hope that the Hastings deal is a catalyst to get things moving on Pensana projects next month. It is likely to get rare earths noticed again and other wealthy investors may want to get involved.

All the best Tony ( I welcome other constructive viewpoints and appreciate any workings others may choose to share. )

Freedom
At the interim presentation they had a slide showing that the 800,000 Amarillo reserves gave them a total of 2.5M ounces equivalent of gold. So without Amarillo say its 1.6M ounces in reserves. The slide does not have resources and its swamped by the 8M at Volcan anyway.
It is easy to use facebook to listen and see the slides for yourself HOC meets investor on the RNS.

Regards Tony

https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/forrest-pumps-150m-into-rare-earths-aspirant-20220826-p5bcx8