One needs to read the AVL ASX release fully. AVL would only produce a Cobalt Concentrate not the expensive and very sought after Cobalt Sulphate : to my knowledge the concentrate would roughly fetch 1/3 of the US$ 91k/ ton world price of Cobalt metal. Still a very nice side income without incurring expensive leaching etc...
But further on p.3 AVL mentions that they would only get 14% of the income as all rights to Nickel, copper, gold ( and i assume Cobalt ) from production are held by Bryah Res. and AVL has 14% stake in Bryah.
My questions is: does TMT also hold the rights to Cobalt, Nickel and Copper ?
Beside this I am not very clear about the grades mentioned by AVL : usually grades for Nickel and Cobalt are given at the ore stage not after flotation. In Australia it is usually 0.1 to 0.2% for laterite ore projects on a commercial basis and around 0.1% for Sulphide. The biggest Copper Cobalt mine in DRC owned by Glencore has a "fantastic" grade 0.5% Cobalt. So AVL's grade of 1.5 to 2% seems out of this world but again it is after flotation and on a sample basis.
To my knowledge the only Co sulphide project in Australia which has managed to get grades close to DRC levels is COB. Via a simple and low cost gravity separation the grade moves from 0.08+ to a 0.45% concentrate ( before flotation and further processing into Cobalt Sulphate) but this is still nowhere close to AVL 1.5 to 2%. I do not know if AVL /TMT Sulphide ores would allow this process to be performed before flotation but it may be worth a try. If successful it could save AVL/TMT a bundle of money by allowing a much reduced qty of ore to go through the flotation process ( as a result COB only need to process 20% of the mined ore). It has already done tests for a neighbour.
Maybe investors are slow to react but as of now AVL SP has only raised by 2.4% upon the news. It is possible they understand the details of the AVL grades better than I do because a true 2% Co should have sent the SP through the roof.
TMT Price at posting:
43.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held