"No profitability numbers are even suggested in the technical study, so "counted in" how?"
Easy, the market has brains of its own!
How else do many resource companies with no financial studies whatsoever and not even a JORC resource reach market caps of hundreds of millions and often billions, well before any economic study and purely on drill results which can only show the potential of an economic resource?
The market uses its collective brains and works out potential value for itself, based on potential scale, grade, metallurgy, distance to existing infrastructure, environmental factors, etc., etc. and the market works out for itself whether it thinks the project will be viable and what the odds are of it being viable and then values the company accordingly - often in the hundreds of millions or even billions.
Think GAL and how it's market cap rocketed just on initial drill results that showed good grades and widths. GOR did the same but reached a mc in the many hundreds of millions and I think it was over a billion on a growing resource base before any economic studies.
MNB doesn't have a JORC for the GA but it does have an agreed price on a 25 year supply of the world's cheapest (by a very large margin) and very reliable source of green hydro electricity. The study did provide cash cost guidance and the market will always make its own commodity price assumptions anyway regardless of what's in a study. Eg if a gold company provides a scoping study, PFS or DFS at a gold price of $1,200 with a NPV of $1bill, you can be sure the market will value the potential of that company based on a much higher gold price than the $1,200 in the DFS if it's currently above $2,000 per ouince, discounted by whatever factor for dilution risk, financing risk, etc. However the market will give it significant value.
Likewise the market will assign a value for MNB's GA project well ahead of the completion of a DFS. In fact it starting doing that in 2021 when the sp rocketed from a low of 5c to 21c ahead of the bear market on increasing news flow for the GA project. It will do it again, especially now as the project continues to advance.
You are mistaken if you think a project won't be given a significant value ahead of a DFS.
As for "crystal ball predictions" like "sp will be $.20 $.40 $1, $4 next month, next quarter, next year, next few years etc."
They are not meant to be crystal ball predictions. They are meant to be ideas on where the sp could go based on analysing as much info as is available and discounting for time to potential production. The market is often very forward thinking and I like to think forward to like other posters here. I certainly have my idea on a significant early stage valuation for the GA and others will to. The mc will trend towards whatever the market collectively values the projects at at their various stages of development and the current strong term uptrend says it all. The current consolidation period as some holders might be selling to fund options is nothing more than another pause in a strong uptrend and shouldn't last beyond next week. Those sellers need T+2 and time to then tf cash to the company to exercise the options so most should finish that next week. Then the sp should take off again over following weeks and months - opps, sorry, I guess that's another crystal ball prediction!
Two questions for you Riverflows:
If you don't make your own prediction on where a sp could go and over what time frame it might be - i.e. have sp targets, then how can you invest?
Secondly, if the GA was suddenly the only project the company had, would you sell your shares with the mc at $50 million? What about $5 million or $1 million. If there is a limit to where you sell then you yourself are giving the project a valuation, whatever valuation that might be.
The market will give it some value and there is no reason why it can't give it that same value just because it has another project closer to production. If anything, that should increase the early stage value given to the GA project for at least several reasons;
1. The phosphate cash flow will be able to fund the advancement of the GA project, reducing early stage dilution risk.
2. The phosphate project getting into production first will give the company a much higher mc and that means that any cr potentially needed for the construction of the GA project will be far less dilutive so the market can give the GA project a higher early valuation with the much lower dilution risk.
3. Getting into positive cash flow with the phosphate project will give the company increased credibility to get the next project up and running - the same can be said if the company attracts quality international partners which I expect it will.
Back on the phosphate project, the company just announcing new applications to secure prospecting licences in Angola that have known phosphate occurrences is very good timing with the price of phosphate in March moving higher than last year's peak.
Not only will that potentially add to the total in ground value with the higher price and potentially increasing resource base but it also shows that the company expects to be producing more than what was in the mine plan in the DFS.