Member Info for wasarunner

Thanks salmonn - I haven't checked whether the $25m orion provided had to be spent on hpal dfs (I believe on one of the investor calls a pilot plant may have been mentioned) so maybe it can be used for an rkef dfs. We will see - it does sound like they are thinking hard about this right now.

Looking back at the dfs contract award rns to Woo it does look like it is targetting hpal (I didn't realise at the time of the award if you read down Woo did the dfs for Vale's Vermelho plan) so as you say maybe this money is committed.

In which case perhaps suck up the cost and do two dfs to provide the optionality for a partner I just don't know where the money comes for the rkef one because I know a lot of the A1 money is very tightly ringfenced (and is likely to be needed) for A1.

Maybe a question for the next investor call. If they are targeting dfs complete mid next year I think thry need to make a decision because even the permitting and things will depend on the process route chosen I would think - a hpal plant is quite different to an rkef one?

>>Verm Class1 or Class 2 will be the choice of whoever invests IMO

I've often wondered this. It seems chicken and egg to me. To develop a 'proper' DFS (note the Vermelho PFS had 2 pages 252-253 on the RKEF option for Vermelho):

https://horizonteminerals.com/news/en_20200618-vermelho-pfs-ni-43-101-october-2019.pdf

you need to know the processing route before you do the DFS because it costs a lot of time and money to produce the DFS and you don't want to incur that twice. But to determine the processing route, _especially_ if your decision is going to be HPAL, you need to know that's what the partner wants because Horizonte have said they won't build HPAL themselves.

So my reading of this situation is this: that you actually need to know who your partner is _before_ you commit to the feasibility study. They have already told us they have had inbound enquiries and of course they already have current shareholders (La Mancha, Orion, Glencore) who could be consulted regarding financing & construction routes. La Mancha own pretty much 30% of the company and are bound to have a view on which way they want it to go (and possibly additional finance equity or debt to help finance Vermelho).

It may mean this decision is not made yet but I do think they will decide which route before the feasibility study is actually done with half an eye on who the partner is. My money is increasingly on RKEF (particularly now the matte has been mentioned) because even though in the PFS the RKEF route had worse economics (NPV8 $2.07bn @$19.8k/t RKEF vs $3.2bn HPAL) they can probably augment this with the matte to bring the difference down. And if this means we/La Mancha retain 100% Vermelho ownership that might be more attractive than the HPAL route. I think in this scenario you don't get the Cobalt which is where some of the HPAL upside came from.

Understandably the company are tight lipped about this but they have to be talking to people - it is a decision which will affect 30+ years of Vermelho mine life and my feeling is you have to make that decision before you do the DFS.

That'll be La Mancha pushing then (from the investor presentation just now)

And this I don't think I saw at the time.

https://www.theassay.com/news/magnis-to-supply-tanzanian-graphite-to-tesla/

Lots of reasons to be invested here.

Posco (sorry if this was posted when it came out, I've only just seen it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFwivqfKXhU

BKT get a mention 21:30 ish in.

These are the serious players in the (non Chinese) market worth watching for developments. The graphite deficit (and battery minerals deficit generally) is real, and incoming. It isn't quite here yet, which is why there isn't quite the panic to get these projects off the ground but that will come.

>>I'm hoping really Q3 for some serious action by which I mean £2 if not before.

Meant to say Q4 of course - mine commissioning A2 DFS.

Ditto what Craig said on the build progress, excellent news of course.

Slight disappointment for me (but perfectly understandable) A2 DFS looks like it has moved back a few months - understandable because they are obviously at a key stage of the construction completion / start of commissioning and it is probably a distraction at this stage - but nevertheless saw this as a possible catalyst because as Lawrence says the share price action is a bit disappointing. I'm hoping really Q3 for some serious action by which I mean £2 if not before.

The thing I am even more interested in at this stage is "Given Vermelho's geological characteristics, the ore has the ability to be processed either through High-Pressure Acid Leach ("HPAL") or Rotary Kiln Electric furnace ("RKEF") technologies. As part of the study and driven by the evolving market dynamics, Horizonte is evaluating the optimal final nickel product that will supply the critical metals market."

I'm looking for clues that we might 'go it alone' or with a financing partner on Vermelho and the second line in that paragraph to me reads quite clearly 'we know the PFS said we would build a hpal plant but the nickel market has changed and we are evaluating all options' - which of course could be RKEF+matte as is pencilled for Araguaia.

Personally I would rather we retain a greater share (possibly 100%) of two tier 1 mines producing on low-risk build out technologies because this will give us a better return overall than a risky hpal plant where we retain a small % even if it does produce a higher margin. So I'll be watching for the language used in the next 6-12 months and hopefully the Vermelho DFS around mid next year will clarify all.

Final point I was reflecting on this morning. 1k production/mth from A1 is $20m/mth revenues. When this plant is built and commissioned that's what we own/will produce, every month, for 28 years or so mine life. kerching kerching kerching. $20m/mth x 336 months is a big number. This is a very exciting place to be invested. GLA

So articles like the US department of Energy, and benchmark minerals, and Urbix, and Posco interest me more I guess than what impatient pi's think. Long term I think their viewpoint (assuming they are right) are the ones to align with.

Probably greed but the contrarian thing doesn't bother me you can be right and everybody else be wrong. I guess the thing that convinced me it is possible is that on another stock I made (on paper not realised yet) more than I earnt over my lifetime through employment. It kind of gets you interested esp if your pfofession is basically maths - and I been in employment 25yrs+.

My theory as an investor is you can make most money on aim by being more patient than other pi's (which is polar opposite strategy to traders who have to watch momentum and what others think as they need to be aligned.) That and I believe the energy transition is real. Not every company will make it and I accept some of mine might not. If 50%+ make it you made it as long as they obviously return 2x which any aim junior getting to production should much more than.

But yes long term I plan not to sit on aim but that strategy is still maybe 3-5yrs away.

Everything I read about graphite is positive and that is why I am here.

Https://www.energy.gov/cmm/what-are-critical-materials-and-critical-minerals

Updated yesterday, graphite is in the supply risk 'high' and importance to energy 'high' quadrant in both short term (current) and medium term 2025-2035 timeframes.

Wonder where they're going to source it all from?

Https://www.energy.gov/cmm/what-are-critical-materials-and-critical-minerals

nickel right up there 2025+ in the supply risk high, importance to energy high quadrant.

And because I'm a betting man I did buy another 1.2m yesterday. Perhaps against my better judgement but I'm a grown up I can live with it if that was a bad decision and I do feel at this price the upside is huge - as good as any on AIM.

Didn't see the answers as have them filtered but my 2 pence. What can't you have seen in 10 years?

1. A junior explorer not getting to production as soon as you liked or perhaps, at all?

Very common in fact a very high percentage of junior explorers don't get to build their mine. They are either bought out or run out of cash typically. It is the minority that make it. So it can't be this as this is very common.

2. BOD don't communicate when there is no news to communicate?

Yes this is more unusual. My experience on AIM is BODs communicate all the time with happy stories of how great they are how great the asset is and what great things are around the corner. Until one day the company goes into liquidation 3 days after they last communicated the good news and high 5s. I prefer the former (no news when no news) than the constant self ramping by companies, if I'm honest. To the point where I'm actually much more wary of companies which do an awful lot of self promotion to keep their directors in the big salaries.

Other than that there is nothing about ACP that hasn't already been seen elsewhere from what I can tell. It is still a going concern unlike around 50% of the AIM companies I ever invested in which have suspended/de-listed/gone into liquidation (somehow I seem to have got out of most more by luck than anything else, granted).

Hopefully Emma knows too.

Goldstone retweeted the Morgan Stanley article yesterday about strong gold prices expected in 2024. Strong gold prices are really well and good, but we need to a. be re-listed having published audited accounts and b. produce some. I thought it a bit odd that they would be tweeting that given the current circumstances but there we go.

AIM itself has been very week - 5 year lows excludinf covid crash. Other than that in 6 years I have been investing on aim I've seen (in no particular order), miners not being granted a licence, miners diluting shareholders out of existence, foreign entity stealing the opco from the holding co, junior producer running out of cash as asset not profitable, junior not able to raise funds to build mine, reverse takeover, company suspend auditor resign. All not great things and all not applicable (yet) to acp. So it could be worse - a lot worse.

Sp drops of 80-90%+ on aim are not uncommon at all. Happened at one point or other on most I've bought. Not pleasant at all, but not uncommon...

I looked back through the RNS' to see which dates we had operational/progress/pictoral updates on Araguaia through RNS (other than the contract / licence award type RNS). Just to see if there was a pattern and when we might expect another as I imagine a lot of work is going on at the moment with a huge number of people working on site. Since last october we've had them on these dates:

4/5 Oct

15 Dec

16 Feb

24 Apr

15 Jun

So they seem to land around bi-monthly which is a nice frequency you get 6 updates in a year which for a project of this size and complexity is great because you can see the progress very visibly (I really like the photo updates).

If it follows the pattern then next update sometime in August!

Oh and I remember 10p too because I did the same dummy trade - 1m @just under 10p I was offered. Obviously and again hindsight trading, would have been lovely to pull the sell trigger and buy back at 90p post consolidation!!!

SJ indeed it is a graveyard some of it is about market cycle timing too - so where Picked says HZM was a solid buy - it was - but they were still _bloody_ lucky to get the finance away in between Covid and the war. The window was short. The financiers would have closed the cheque books during the war and inflationary spiral and it would have been very difficult for Horizonte to raise $630m even now. And to some extent this is probably why AIM is trading at 5yr lows at the moment - juniors (which have to have cash to do literally anything) are just struggling to raise cash in a high interest rate environment - or the market correctly assumes cash will come at a much higher price (of equity, or debt).

I'm hoping that's the issue with some of the other stocks as it does look to be market wide. Of course on top of s***e macro you can also have s***e management it's more common that they're not good than they are good, probably. I think with Horizonte it is a combination of things - a strong management team who could get finance away (no doubt worked hard to do so, but nevertheless a lot of luck on timing), great asset, and strong institutional backers like Picked says. It does worry me a bit about some of the other investments where there aren't big institutional holders and this is definitely one to look out for in future investments.

But yes there's huge amount of luck in timing investments and I certainly don't profess to have any expertise - my luck was coming into cash a lot when Horizonte was beat up and I just kept buying. But I'm not daft, I know that was luck. GLA

Yes there is no right or wrong strategy just different ones. Hopefully those who hold HZM (in whatever ratio) of their portfolio will see good reward here. We actually aren't an awful long way from decade high (if you exclude 2013-) on the shareprice. (I'm treating 160p -> 200p as a very closeable gap).

Google for some reason is showing 223/225p as highs around 2021 I'm not sure why I don't remember the share price being 10p+ since I've been invested (it briefly flirted with 10p). Unless these were intraday spikes I don't remember 11p - does anyone else?

Picked understood and very valid points - still needs proverbial of steel to not question your investment decision when the shareprice dropped to 1.7p (twice post Orion investment IIRC - once during the big II liquidation second through Covid) at peak fear I think I was some £350k+? down on my investment. I understand it comes with the territory but the theory that holding 4-5 investments of course is that if one is trading at 50% what you paid for it your portfolio is showing 90% of what you paid for it and not 50%. But on AIM that doesn't seem to work it is very easy to be at 50% overall with 4-5 holdings (and indeed, lower).

Anyway you clearly believe there is plenty of upside in the next 12 months (as do I) and it is a solid hold/add for me at this level. I'm expecting this level to go completely and £2 ish short shrift I just don't know exactly what/when will be the catalyst. But it will come, barring a black swan.