I am reluctant to post too much on Ivanhoe Mines, it is a TSX stock; but because of the interrelationships of the companies through RF, and his contacts and interests in Ivanhoe Capital, China, etc., it is relevant to bring Ivan into the conversation from time to time, for various reasons.
I have a large position in Ivanhoe Mines. As with CLQ, I am in long-term, and I do have not very much interest or concern on short-term stock price fluctuations. Of course I would prefer that they generally fluctuate in an upwards direction. My average entry on Ivan was under 80 cents, but I added recently around $2.
But to your question: Ivanhoe Mines gets the worst of both distaste for DRC, and a $700 million dollar dilution. So it is understandable.
Many people will justifiably stay away from Ivanhoe on account of the DRC, and I am not trying to persuade anyone to leave their comfort zone on jurisdiction risk. But my opinion is that the value in Ivanhoe's projects is very compelling when the stock approaches $2. One can rationalize the Platreefs project alone at that price, it is in South Africa, not the DRC; and consider that a world top-five copper project and the top zinc project world-wide in terms of grade are thrown in for free, because they are in the DRC.
If one looks at the project updates and the background of the projects, it is impossible not to be impressed.
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Relating these projects to CLQ, I do not believe any will use Clean iX as a primary extraction method, although it is possible that Platreefs might, because it is four years away and a decision might be made to use Clean iX for some of the metals once the process is established on a large scale. But I think it is likely that conventional methods will be retained in the plans for platinum and palladium, to keep investor anxiety at a minimum.
My speculations on CLQ business for Ivanhoe Mines projects are as follows:
PLATREEFS: I believe it is likely that CLQ technology will be employed before commissioning to test and process ore that will be stockpiled from the shaft excavations. The 10-meter wide lift shaft has been dug to 750 meters depth, and the orebody is at 783 meters and is a few hundred meters thick. Further they announced the installation of a crusher at the 750 meter workstation depth. So I think they are going to start crushing ore once they get down another 33 meters. I do not believe they will sit on this ore for four years while awaiting commissioning.
In addition they announced a major water procurement contract from the locals. The water is needed for the mine, but it is logical that CLQ purification will be used on the mine water. The quantities are in the millions of liters per day. One has to ask why such an announcement was made, four years before the mine is to be commissioned.
To me the answer is obvious: a six-metal project, ore being crushed four years early, and millions of liters per day of mine water being brought in and returned: This spells CLEAN TEQ
KIPUSHI BIG ZINC...this project, being rehabbed in a hurry by Ivanhoe, has the highest zinc grade of any major zinc mine, by a factor of 2. It also has a number of economic metals...besides zinc, it has silver, germanium, and nickel; and there are 70 or 80 years of tailings. Also the mine was the richest copper mine in the world before it became a zinc mine.
Originally I was feverish with excitement over CLQ technology being used on those juicy tailings.
However I found that rights to the tailings dam are not controlled by CLQ, another Aussie micro-cap
has them. So CLQ tech cannot be expected on the tailings or wastewater, until after Kipushi is back into production. But when production is re-started, I believe CLQ will partner in the treatment of tailings and wastewater from the new production.
KAMOA-KAKULA-KAKULA WEST...this is a mega-project that is in 6 million tons per year increments.
It will be a world top-five producer, with outrageous grades. The capital needed for this project is immense, and they will not give investors anxiety by relying on CLQ technology in the main processing. We got enough anxiety with the DRC as it is. But at some point, as with Kipushi and Platreefs,
I would be surprised if CLQ was not involved in the wastewater and tailings processing.
In passing, when Ivanhoe Mines sold Sunrise to CLQ, IVN retained a royalty from CLQ on the Sunrise project. Sunrise are small potatoes compared to KKKW, from the standpoint of invested capital required.
OTHER PROJECTS: Ivanhoe has no other projects, but RF has several exploration and discovery enterprises where one might reasonable suppose CLQ technology will be called upon, once the CLQ process is established on a large scale at Sunrise.
I have already stated previously that I believe a vanadium project in China will be announced this year by interests controlled by RF, and in my opinion there is a very high probability that CLQ will be involved.
This speculation was not fabricated out of thin air, I have detailed the circumstantial evidence for it.
Given that vanadium has not been a publicly proposed target for CLQ, a confirmation will be rather satisfying to my ego, and hopefully to my financial position in CLQ.
In addition to vanadium interests in China, the uranium interests of Goviex and the rapid development of Sama Resources in West Africa, all come to mind immediately. There are also potentials in less developed projects in Asia, North America, and South America.
GLTAH
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