Good afternoon
well equity markets are not disppointing today! It´s Quarter end tomorrow, and I think just about everybody would like to see prices rather higher than lower!
US housing data has been very positive today, partially due to some ( questionable ) reopening of US-markets…but infections are rising at a very fast pace in the US, amidst widespread ignorance over there. Let´s hope, that US optmism beats US ignorance!
Gold is holding so far at recent highs, as Gold ETF´s continue to see good inflows. Base matsla re slightly up today. Macquarie is pretty cautious on nickel, as production for non-battery material is boominmg in Indonesia. I think we can bury previous estimates for the nickel price of 17-200.000 US$/t in a few years…we might have to be happy with 15.000 for the stuff being produced in Australia, which is battery-material from sulphides mainly.
Panoramic - had their AGM today, and while beyond me, shareholders approved the sale of the remaining shareholding in Horizon Gold to Zeta Resources at the scandalous price of 20ct/share, vs a share price of 43ct today, and above 30ct for the last 10 days or so! Furthermore, Zeta gained control ( tehy now have 69% of HRN ) without paying a control premium! A good piece of work by Zeta - bad bad news in my opinion for PAN- as well as HRN-shareholders. As you know, I am a large holder of both, and tried to find some enthusiasm to vote against a sale - but only 11% of votes were against a sale. What a ( bad ) joke!! I am expecting now imminently a capital raising for Horizon, enabling them to do some more drilling for resource-conversion, and to drive the project forward. At current prices for gold, toll-treatment as well as a stand-alone project should both be VERY profitable!
Atrum Coal - had their AGM today. The company is developing a premium-quality coking coal project in Alberta, Canada. You might ask: Who is interested in coking coal? And my answer would be: Hardly anybody! But this is an excellent project, and coking coal will be needed for as long as steel is being produced! The company has 450 millt in resources, of which 142 mill are indicated - with much more to come, partially through a current drilling program. The company has previously done a scoping study, which indicated cash operating costs in the low 80ties US$ vs a current ( quite depressed ) price of 117 US$/t, placing them in the lower half of world costs. The approval process here is the major driver. Quite recently Gina Rhinehardt payd 700 odd$ for a nearby project, which is probably 12-18 month ahead in the approval process and therefore, has been partially de-risked. Interesting enough, the very wealthy Roberts family from Perth own 19% of it ( they previously made a lot of moeny by selling the neighbouring asset to Gina ), and some smart Perth-based funds are also large shareholders. The market of 130 mill A$ leaves a lot of room. Performance triggers will be drilling, the approval process, and the current PFS-study. Certainly worth watching, and having a foot in the door. The company completed a placement at current levels and has 22 mill A$ cash in the bank.
Centaurus Metals - teh Perth-based company is developing a nickel project in Brazil, which was previously owned by Vale and deemd by them as being too small. Vale explored it for many years as a potential bulk-mining operation, and it could not meet their investment hurdles. CTM is trying a different approach_ To develope several smaller mines, at better grades. CTM have been very successfull in doing so and have managed to deleniated a sizeable, 517.000t resource at the erasonable grade of 1,08% nickel, with high grade resource of 320.000t at 1,56% Ni. There is significant potential still to increase the resource. The company will be doing a scoping study , which should be finished by Okt/Nov of this year, and is doing more drilling as well. Cash as at the End of March was 7,5 mill A$ - the next placement by be a good time to look at them again! The share price was very strong today, following the better-than-expected resource estimate. They could be tempted to raise 15mill A$ soon, which would pay for a lot more drllling and a pre-feasibility
Have a nice evening
WS