Ben Richardson, CEO at SulNOx, confident they can cost-effectively decarbonise commercial shipping. Watch the video here.
I would never have thought that the share price would fall back to my entry price after a series of RNS announcements of successful drilling. But there again most small caps have seen severe price drops in 2022. Bushranger was purchased for £1.25m in 2020. Since then the company has made drilling announcements where all but one or two had successes to report. It also has other valuable projects in Africa. It's market capitalisation is £17m just now. In the village where I live it would not be difficult to find 10 houses worth that amount of money. I suspect Bushranger is worth substantially more than these 10 houses and this has led me to add to my position recently.
I have done my full research and met management so I am patient. I read some of the posts here and many want jam tomorrow - don't we all! But we know that bar Anglo American buying Bushranger there will be no sale until the Autumn of 2023 at the earliest.
Having scanned through the recent posts, this situation is similar to many that have occurred with other companies. We have a bulletin board full of anonymous posters where we may express our fear, greed, optimism and pessimism in our posts. We do not know who is genuine and who has an agenda. We assess posters and make up our own minds on them. We see who is objective and balanced by their posts.
Previously, with other companies I have developed models to try and project likely outcomes. They were good models as far as they went but I did not have the full facts, data and knowledge of the industry to make them really useful. I concluded that other factors were more Important, especially business fundamentals and management integrity and competence.
I don’t mind seeing criticism of management and other criticisms. But when made anonymously it seems weak to me. We can ask the question was the poster greedy, fearful, optimistic or pessimistic, or just lashing out because he has a paper loss on his investment?
IMO some good points have been made here and on XTR’s board structure.
For my twopenneth so much comes down to management, I.e. Mr Bird. As I see it he has integrity, a good knowledge of the industry, is commercial, appointed a good management team, is experienced in working with other parties/companies and is a good communicator with shareholders. IMO he may be on the optimistic side of the spectrum but there again so am I. I just prefer enthusiasm and optimism. As with other shareholders at the AGM i met him and his team and that helped me form my views, whether right or wrong.
Let’s not forget his foresight in acquiring Bushranger and other valuable projects when others saw no value in them. He has concluded various business agreements with other companies whose managements will have done their. due diligence on those projects and on him. That knowledgable and professional third party endorsement is something I value.
Now I am awaiting further news from the company in due course. Nothing has changed for me with regard to this investment. I wanted 2m tons but expected less as I thought the company would go down the decision to mine route on the basis of lower tonnage. This would probably result in AA declining the option and leaving the company free to negotiate with other companies, before or after any additional work to develop the tonnage further.
No comment on the tweets. Shame we have had no RNS news on progress for the breathalyser, Pulmobiomed, cruise industry contract and Chinese contact for Modern Water to mention but a few. Why mention these business developments if we never hear about them from management again. They seem to disappear into space.
It seems to me that management must begin to treat this like a listed company and not a private one. Just communicate better with shareholders, be more disciplined in project management and in financial management. Who knows perhaps we will get a quarterly RNS update of the business from management one day.
But do keep the tweets on the detail going. Someone must benefit from them but please tell me who?
My friends on the cruise ship have now arrived at Barbados. They are both in separate isolation cabins despite being married. No one is allowed to disembark and all excursions have been cancelled. Assumed the Barbadian authorities will not allow disemabarakation due to rampant covid on board.
In my mind there is no doubt that GB has identified an important market.
What I cannot understand is why shareholders are kept in the dark om progress with major projects like the BT, cruise industry and China Resources for example. They were important enough to be announced in the first place and then shareholders are not kept up to date on progress. Perhaps it would have been better not to announce them in the first place. Best to announce and over achieve rather than announce, nod, wink, wink and then miss any reasonable achievement timescale. Meanwhile on Twitter we get GB posting all sort of detail that few shareholders care about, e.g. we now know that STC has attended it's 79th conference this month!!!
The company needs to take professional advice on its PR, communication to shareholders and to the financial market. I know all small caps are currently totally out of favour regardless of the industry they are in. But there are exceptions such as Bens Creek which is a good case study. There they gave good guidance on their projects and timing, making it fairly easy for shareholders to estimate likely revenues and timing. They also have not yet failed to deliver what they saisd would be done.
In making this point I am in danger of GB coming back and saying shareholders always whinge when the share price is down. But that would miss the point entirely. Any company needs a good share price, as good as can be achieved in the market, not to placate patient shareholders but to allow the company to raise funds/convertible debt on the most advantageous terms for the company and to create the aura of a successful business.
trillsg, in the RNS of 16.11.20 GB said:
In addition, DeepVerge has agreed to license a patented breathalyser from PulMoBioMed Limited ("PBM"), a spin-out technology company of Northumbria University, to capture SARS-CoV-2 particles in breath condensate for the DeepVerge optofluidic breath test ("Microtox BT").
When I spoke to them some time ago they said they had had no subsequent contact from Deep Verge. Why has GB not updated us shareholders on what is happening?
trillsg, it's not just the PD's but the breathalysers.
Here is an extract from an email just received from friends on a cruise.
“3 hours later - results back! and surprise surprise, I had symptoms of a cold etc and have proved negative, Sue who has been perfectly OK proved positive.
Result of all this we have been moved to an isolation area of the ship (much smaller room), with Sue in isolation for 6 days and me for 2 days.”
Come on Gerry, are we going to launch covid testing with the cruise industry or is a no go?
On 10.1.22 when price was 18.5p I said........
the problem is that John Story has a 13% shareholding that includes interests in financial instruments. I expect these are Contracts for Difference and constitute quite a chunk of his holding. No wonder the shorters had a field day in 2021. As long as he has these CFD’s, all they need to do is let the share price rise and then short the hell out of it again and again. He needs to stump up the cash for these CFD shares if he has it, otherwise the share price will continue to suffer.
Since then john Story has sold his financial instruments down to 7.52% from 9.64% of the company's share capital at around 12.4p. That's an additional loss for him.
He still has 7.62% of the company's share capital in financial instruments, probably CFD's, being 15.95m shares that will need to be sold at some stage. If he cannot stu,p up the cash for these shares then he might want to close the positions when his broker will sell the shares it holds. I doubt the shorters will let him off the hook.
Hi Guys, I cannot understand why you are replying to porv stoking the embers he is trying to light. Third parties, whether they are shorters or market makers have their own hidden objectives. It has been proven time and time again the best way to deal with such posters is to ignore them completely.
Firstly, I just want to say thank you to iceberg for your analysis on your blog and for your comments on the BB. You obviously know what’s what on exploration and geology.
I have been following the comments on the eventual sale and valuation for sale of Bushranger. It seems to me that Racecourse will be more or less drilled out for a good estimate of resources to be established. So no problem here.
As far as Ascot goes Mr Bird has indicated that it is unlikely to be fully drilled out unless significant new information emerges from planned drilling. Without being fully drilled out the reserves for Ascot will be more in the “inferred” category or even vaguer than that.
Then there is the area between Ascot and Racecourse. Also, Footrot has not had a drill put into it yet. Although I suspect a few holes will be put into it before the end of April 2022.
Mr Bird has indicated we should look to a short timescale to around April/May for getting the asset ready for sale. Obviously he and we want to see a full valuation of the asset for sale. He has indicated that fully drilling out Ascot and Footrot is not necessary. This is fine by me. He knows how to value such assets far better than me and probably everyone else on this board. Also, such a sale might be one where royalties, especially on Ascot and Footrot, might be a key component of the sale price.
Keepdreaming, I meant to add that I did not find them sawdust like at all. And by the way I slept very well. The only thing that keeps from smoking the rest of the pack is my wife... haha.....but seriously I do not want to start smoking at my age. The Gummies sound just fine and I will try them.
PH61247, can you give some feedback on the Gummies? I wanted to buy some to try but out of stock as you say.
Peter Lynch advocates always trying the products of companies I am thinking of investing in. Good advice. I asked about the smokes a while back and only one person replied on the experience of his son, who said he found them a little sawdust like.
Since then I bought the smokes to try. Well they arrived and I tried one. I should say I am non-smoker having tried smoking behind the proverbial school loo block at the age of 16 and having tried cigars and pipe smoking since then. My wife was a smoker many years ago and she said I must inhale and not just puff. Well I tried one the other night and......................................I really enjoyed it. My wife asked how it felt and I said I felt chilled. I can believe that many smokers and vappers could well enjoy these smokes and that they could attract new customers to smoking. I now need to get them tried out by a friend who has been a heavy smoker and now uses IQOS.
By the way the negative of trying the smokes was that my wife insisted on opening all the windows and doors to the outside and then leaving the room!
Next up the Gummies as soon as they are available.
2nd part of note.
As we mentioned in our NY 2022 tip, recent GPR work at Mambare was designed to determine the location for the DSO operation for the Mining Lease. This development is likely to require US$25 – 30 million of capex and in this morning’s announcement investors have begun to see the first moves towards bringing this nickel mine into production with a financially strong partner. Currently, the company owns 41% of the project, but given a perceived inability of its partner BMA to fund the asset through to production, it would seem logical that the entire asset is vended into Corcel to allow for meaningful development.
The MOU that is being negotiated importantly covers DSO production from both Mambare and WoWo Gap. Obvious synergies exist between WoWo Gap and Mambare which are planned to be explored in detail. The degree to which WoWo Gap and Mambare are combined depends on a host of factors. Putting the two of them together as a combined PNG project does make Corcel a big player in PNG and will make dealings with the government a lot easier.
The synergies are pretty big here, with the opportunity to cherry pick the best bits for DSO at each deposit, potentially exporting using the same logistical streams and applying revenues from one to further develop the other.
For a variety of reasons, both these large assets have not attracted much value in the market. Going forward, a good case could probably be made for WoWo Gap being worth roughly the same as Mambare (which alone was valued at something like £40 million Mambare back in 2011-12) or at least some reasonable discount to that. With nickel prices strong and Chinese producers looking to have diverse sources of ore (outside Philippines and Indonesia), Corcel looks mighty well-placed in our view.
In one fell swoop, the perception of Corcel should have clearly changed for all to see as now the company’s two largest assets have a much clearer pathway to production that might include, offtake/funding support/partnerships. Given that production is now clearly in sight, investors should now be able to place more value on the nickel and cobalt in the ground. As matters develop, other potential transactions involving the company and NPC are possible as things develop. There is no doubt that this move significantly advances the company’s battery led strategy and critically demonstrates Corcel has the ability to take its projects to the next level – whether than be advancing its projects to cash flow or an exit.
By any yardstick, Corcel looks well undervalued in our view. We initiated coverage on Corcel in July 2021 with a Conviction Buy stance when the shares were trading at 1.625p and have since upped our target price a touch to 20.03p. At the current price of 1.50p, our Conviction Buy stance remains unchanged.
Corcel has just unveiled the biggest deal that the company has ever done, which could serve to unlock the value in its two largest assets. This morning the market learnt that Corcel had entered into a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding with Shandong New Powder COSMO AM&T (NPC) for the supply of nickel from Corcel’s Mambare and WoWo Gap Nickel Projects in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
This announcement does read really well. NPC is looking to buy up to 0.5Mt per annum of nickel Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) products from Corcel’s two nickel projects. This deal is being negotiated with a powerful Chinese based group, NPC, a joint venture between Sentient Global Resources Funds, Dougide Group and COSMO AM&T Co. Ltd, which focuses on producing lithium battery cathode materials. NPC owns and operates a 5,000tpa cathode plant in China and has plans to invest US$60 million expanding to 16 production lines which will quadruple production capacity to 20,000tpa this year.
As far as the agreement is concerned, being negotiated is a binding offtake agreement for the purchase of nickel by NPC with an initial term of 3 – 5 years. The price paid for the nickel DSO products will based on the underlying commodity prices on the LME or similar, of course as well as reflecting the purity and specification. The MOU has a 12-month term which can be extended by mutual consent.
Moving ahead, NPC and Corcel will be working on establishing product specifications to be used in the offtake agreement. Such work may require additional work to be conducted on the existing feasibility studies along with technical analysis. Importantly, the two partners will also be working together on sourcing the finance to take Corcel’s two nickel projects into production.
Just look at the quality of these partners. Sentient is a private equity group with US$2.7 billion under management with assets in the metals, minerals, and energy space. Doguide Group is the third largest titanium pigment producer in China with 200ktpa and some US$300 million of annual revenues.
Meanwhile, $1.3 billion market cap COSMO is a publicly listed Korean company and the country’s fourth largest lithium battery cathode producer. COSMO has a capacity of 12,000tpa and an enviable customer base which includes the likes of Samsung, LG, Sony and Umicore. It has to be said that they are ideal partners for PNG with a real need for materials.
The NPC joint venture was formed in 2017 and has already successfully introduced advanced cathode technology and equipment from Korea and Japan into China. Here NPC is focusing on the R&D and production of LCO, NCM523, NCM622, NCM811, and NCA li-ion battery ternary cathode materials, which are used in electronics, EVs and energy storage applications.
The nickel price continues to fly high at US$20,700 a tonne and Corcel is indeed blessed to a 41% interest in the Mambare Nickel Project and a 100% stake in the WoWo Gap Nickel Project in PNG.
As we mentioned in our NY