General discussion, page-11878

Imagine if a a major steel company wanted to buy WA1, CBMM could see their cosy near monopoly disappear until the Luni deposit was exhausted, forcing them to sell at a much lower price, and possibly taking out every other minor Niobium miner.

It's far more in their interest to have Luni be a success and make good profits to keep the SP up high enough that no-one else can do/wants to do a T/O. This is especially true if they are not permitted to have a direct interest via FIRB.

It's not like anyone else is finding anything close to a Luni, with the one most likely candidate, our neighbour so far only finding relatively small quantities.

Should another couple of large, high grade Niobium deposits turn up, then it's a different game, possibly with the large finds going into competition with each other, the price of Niobium falling and the small players closing down.

The simple fact that no-one has discovered another Araxa in 70 years, and Luni being the only large ore body similar in grade, while still much smaller (may change), is pretty good evidence that not many large high grade Niobium resources exist. We have to remember that it is a unique set of circumstances in the geological history, including preservation that has allowed both Araxa and Luni to exist in the first place.

CBMM definitely would be well aware of everything happening at Luni, and I'm pretty sure smart enough to NOT shoot themselves in the foot by going into simple competition.

What's really funny about these threads is how people come to the WA1 threads spouting low niobium prices/competition with CBMM, etc, etc, then ramp some other very minor Niobium projects on other company's threads, that can only be small players at the very best, provided the price of Niobium is high...