Hi mate, as always I enjoy reading your contributions about RXM and other companies you follow.
Sentiment and momentum sure plays a part in the share price of small mining companies like this. Mr. Market recently thought Rex was worth high 20 cents per share. Now it's low 20s! Nothing has really changed except for the copper price being a bit lower. Hillside would make money at today's prices. But I'm sure that in any copper shortage future scenario, with the copper price much higher, Hillside would be a certainty. And that future is pretty much guaranteed with future organic growth of demand as the Asia and Africa's middle class grows, plus of course the mad (in more ways than one
) rush to electrification.
I look at it this way: wouldn't it be great to jump in a time machine, go back 15 years and do things better. Join a gym, start learning that language, buy apple and Google stock. Unfortunately it's impossible for us. I'm sure larger miners wish they'd invested more in exploration and development of new capacity in 2008. Instead, the fact is exploration has dried up. It's gotten too difficult, and takes too long to develop new mines -- 15-20 years to first production. Shareholders demanded dividends and rejected speculative spending with no foreseeable return.
Mid to large tier miners however DO have access to such a time machine. They can simply buy the progress made (including the permitting process) by a smaller company like Rex and, for a few hundred million dollars, essentially catch-up on those years of overlooking the replacement of lost mining capacity. Hillside's 15 years of navigating the permitting and drilling process, plus it's location in SA, close to port, gives me great comfort. I can't think of a similar project in Australia that's not owned or controlled by one of the global giants. And who really wants to invest in (or fund) a project in Africa. I saw an episode of Aus Biz's 'The Call' recently where an analyst (speaking about a NT rare earths stock) said the longer a project is hanging around undeveloped, the more stale it becomes, and the less likely it is to go ahead. Maybe in the past. However, deposits like Hillside do not grow on trees. I'd argue it's the permitting (and litigation, community consultantation, and traditional owner) process that is so time consuming; more so now than ever before. Imagine buying a project where that's already done for you. Talk about being able to atone for years of under-investment and neglect with the stroke of a pen.
I have a few questions about Hog's Breath for you and others here. None of which require more than a bit of speculation
Do you think more drilling would be done at Hog's Ranch to increase indicated gold before selling or listing as a spin off company? Currently we have a reasonable sized project. There are plenty of similar sized projects that get (and more importantly, never get) built at our current indicated and inferred gold estimates. If Rex thinks there's more gold there, maybe it would be worth doing more drilling first to increase those figures. I guess there's a time and fiscal cost of doing so though. How much you want to spend on drilling when you actually want to dispose of the asset. I don't know.
If it's listed as a spin off company, where do you think it would it list? On the ASX or in the US? Any idea of the timeframe to divestment? Could it happen sooner than anyone expects? Any idea of the value per share to shareholders if it were sold tomorrow? Five cents? Ten? Do you think the funds would be returned to shareholders or, (ideally) used to develop Hillside? And do you think a less complex company, with only Hillside on its books would look more attractive to investors of Rex, and potential future acquirers.
None of these questions are probably very important. Just an excuse to have a chat about Rex Minerals I'm looking forward to whatever future Rex has in store for us. As l wrote, 15 years of development in a tier 1 jurisdiction with future demand increases sure is appealing to me.
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