comments from robin bromby, page-12

MOU SMOO, without a funding component it's not terribly exciting IMO.

With a viable resource, in terms of volume/mine life, NTU would hold the whip hand like no other RE wannabe purely on the volumes of DY alone.

Their projected 300tpa Dy should be more than sufficient to negotiate the best deal going.

Perhaps they have some masterplan that's going to knock us all for six when revealed but I just can't understand the way NTU is progressing.

They have fairly simple metallurgy compared to HAS, ALK etc yet they spend a lot of time on it BEFORE identifying an economic resource.

They are still only a third/half way to an economic resource, a definite requirement for a BFS which then leads to the financing stage, and yet they are now talking a MOU over half the projected production volume with no mention of any financing component?

Wouldn't it make more sense to drill like crazy, prove up an economic resource, do the BFS and then hawk 300tpa of Dy, by far the most important REE, to all and sundry and see who comes up with the best offtake/financing package that causes the least equity dilution to existing SH's?

Three things worry me about this MOU:
1. Not a hint of a financing package for the first dibs at possibly the world's best source of Dy.
2. No indicative breakdown of the 1500tpa, they wouldn't want a disproportionate volume of Dy to slip thru their fingers without having financing in place.
3. It magically appears just before the JORC finally arrives to show half a resource.

I genuinely don't like saying this but NTU is starting to look a lot like Molycorp to me with the lack of real progress covered up with smokescreen Ann's.

They spent a lot of time trying to find a bigger prospect after initial work at Wolverine and then Ann. the metallurgy bit as a distraction during the delay. Even little old CUX has published way more detail on their metallurgy work.

Finally they have to turn back to Wolverine and eventually announce half a resource at best, on the cusp of Xmas, with the further distraction of some rather vague offtake agreement that has no indication that they are maximising their trump card?

At the same time they commit $4M of SH funds to get access to more prospective territory when they are still heavily promoting the potential of all the other prospects they've been looking at for the past 18 months or so? Surely that money would be better spent drilling out Wolverine, BFS & mine plan so that they can get their development finance together.

Maybe I'm way wrong but NTU seems to totally lack focus and, while I'm no way convinced that HAS is economic, I'm struggling to see why NTU is valued 3.5x HAS.

I'll suggest they've decided that just producing a concentrate from the relatively small resource they have is marginal and there is just not enough resource/mine life to justify the CapEx on a hydrometallurgy value add stage at this point.

IMO for NTU to hold current values they need to define further economic resource, quickly.