Hi
@troyus, hi all,
I agree with your thinking re gold Troyus. However with Mt thirsty I see no evidence that the cobalt plan is not solid. They have said that their recent tests have achieved previous cobalt yields - very important - and more testing makes sense as there is always room for improvement. I don't see a problem.
The main things for me - 1: two very well respected consultancies have developed and extensively tested the proposed cobalt extraction process - which is not rocket science. 2: The famous geologist/prospector Mark Creasy (Platx) has bought up the other half of the resource. He's a clever business man, and those consultancies are rigorous and have reputations to maintain.
So it could all be smoke and mirrors, but what would anyone have to gain by the JV pulling the wool over our eyes seeing as they've not even re-launched the project yet? If Thirsty was a scam to raise capital they would've already had a big glossy marketing campaign (like COB) a year ago, and run a huge credit raising campaign then to milk it for all that it's worth. As it is, they have remained under the radar, and conducted very modest raises - both CNJ and BAR.
I think the managers are simply very cautious and want to make sure the details are rock-solid before pitching the project to the market. Makes a lot of sense to me, especially in light of all the questions investors now have surrounding COB's recent vague scoping study details (Do they need to sell acid to make it viable? What's the likely CAPEX AND OPEX? No one knows...). Much better to wait until the business case is water-tight before going public. I'm very happy with this.
Additionally I suspect every cobalt junior is in discussions with battery makers who want to see detail before offering off-takes, and who have gag orders on what the miners can say about deals in discussion. For the Thirsty JV managers, what we retail investors know and think right now is pretty much irrelevant. They're focussed on proving their processes, costing the whole thing up and doing deals. And only after that (assuming success), they will market the plan, retail investors will come to the party and the upside will take care of itself.
Regarding comparing BAR/CNJ to ARL (around $600Mil capex) and CLQ (around $900 million capex) it's apples to oranges. Thirsty is still huge, and likely to get larger, and at 10% or less of the other's CAPEX to develop it's going to be much easier to finance and get to production - and speed is the name of the game here, much more so than lithium.
Of course we can all only speculate about what's around the corner, and I'll happily admit I'm wrong in a month or so if the scoping study is a flop. But I think it's unlikely. I think it will be pretty much as we have seen so far - similar process results, a refined CAPEX and OPEX figures and refined plant details, and HOPEFULLY an expansion of the resource with Creasy or the new tenement. Then the real fun begins and we see which big players want to do deals...
If anyone can show that my thinking above is floored in any way then please let me know - I'm all ears.
Cheers,
Solarbat
