Scott as you suggested, I thought with EQRs latest acquisition perhaps a little comparison with Almonty would be of interest.
Easy numbers to compare
Market Cap
AII - $255m AUD
EQR - $119m AUD + 170m shares@ $0.053 ($9m) =$128m AUD
Current production
Not sure of AII latest quarterly MTU numbers so i will look at revenue
AII - 3rd Quarter - $6.8m AUD
EQR - 3rd Quarter - $21.2m AUD
Debt @3rd Quarter
AII - 3rd Quarter - $165m AUD
EQR - 3rd Quarter - $53m AUD + Tungsten Metal groups liabilities (lets go with $35m??) -$88m AUD
Assets
EQR has Mt Carbine producing
EQR has Saloro producing
Almonty has Panasqueira producing
Almonty has Sandong in development.
Sandong has at least 12 months more on the build IMO, then they get to start the fun of getting recoveries up to scratch. It is an underground mine so I would expect costs to be more per unit than that of Mt Carbine and Saloro as both are open pit operations utilising XRT sorting tech which helps reduce costs per unit.
The original estimate for phase one of the Sandong build is targeting 640k tonnes with an average grade of 0.46% and recovery rate of 85%. This would get them !250,000 MTUs contained. EQR is currently running at around 200,000 MTUs contained. I expect EQR to continue to improve production rates and I expect AII to struggle to get 85% recoveries.
Sandong phase one was expected to cost $105m CAD and start in 2024. Given the plant is only half finished and their current cash on hand at the end of the quarter was $12.8m CAD I expect they will need to raise further capital. I may be wrong.
Assuming the latest acquisition closes EQR will have a ferrotungsten plant that can run at 4000 tpa. Almonty has plans for a 4000 tpa Tungsten Oxide plant with an initial Capex of $210m which according to their latest November presentation will increase operating expenses by $232m AUD resulting in an increase to post-tax cash flow of $14m AUD. The financials on this don’t exactly look attractive on this so I’d be shocked if this goes past the current plan stage.
This is a very rough comparison. Both EQR and AII have other assets and both have a lot going on right now. However based on the above I know where I would put my money.
EQR has the smaller market cap, less Debt, out produces AII, has a 4000 tpa ferrotungsten plant and IMO has A LOT less risk.
GLTA
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