Akora (AKO) VS Hawsons (HIO), page-4

Ok, so this is a general overview slide, with 8 bullet points and a map.

Location
On Land
HIO - 60kms south west of Broken Hill, about 350kms as the crow flies from Port Pirie, but it seems like there are some hills that need to be traversed in order to get to port.

HIO looks like it is pretty close to a railway line, so that is a massive positive, but more on that to come.

AKO - Close to nowhere really, it is about 250kms from the port of Toliara as the crow flies, but this blows out to about 500kms if you have to drive by road - which is on a "well maintained" sealed road / national highways.
There is also the option of shipping out of Morombe, which appears to be about 200kms as the crow flies, but there is not national highway, and will likely require AKO to build a lot more all weather road.

Land Winner: HIO. I think this is more an initial win, obviously there appears to be a lot more infrastructure, but the cost per KM of infrastructure that needs to be developed in Australia is likely to be more than in Madagascar. And we need to actually wait for later in the presentation to understand what their preferred transport solution is likely to be.

On Sea
HIO - Once the ore is on the ship, it needs to travel approx 5318 NM which will take about 22 days, according to https://classic.searoutes.com/routing/4294969260/4294967519?

AKO - On this site, there is no reference for Toliara, so I am using Beira in Mozambique (which is close enough, and I am going to Mumbai, as Paul suggested that India may be a customer - https://classic.searoutes.com/routing/4294968465/4294968556

This is about 3251 NM or 13.5 days.

Sea Winner: AKO. The HIO ore needs to travel about 63% more distance by ship to get to port in Shanghai.

Production Target
HIO - 20mt - there is no short cut that can be taken, no "low cost starter operation", this requires immediate scale to be feasible, and although the BFS hasn't been completed yet, I think it will come in at about $1B - $2B.

Obviously with 10x the production of AKO in the early years, the revenues will be much larger, but there will also be a lot of dilution to get the operation going in that whilst you can scale, there is a lot that needs to be funded via dilution and debt.

AKO - 2mt - this is likely to be a low cost DSO starter operation, the profits from which will allow the company to self fund future development, which will hopefully result in no to minimal dilution for existing holders.

Production Winner: AKO. Maybe I have a bias here (I hope not) here as it should result in a lot less shares, a lot less risky development (doing more things, so more prospect of things going wrong, massive capex so a 5% blow out in cost is a big number)

Resource Size and Recovery
HIO - 3.06 Billion tonnes at 13% recovery for 400 Mt of concentrate

AKO - 160 million tonnes (assuming 75mt for the Southern zone) at 40% recovery rate for ~65mt of "concentrate".

Note: we have only drilled approx 30% of the 6km strike, but as we have the Northern and Central zones which seem open at depth, who knows how much material there could be.

Let's assume that 160mt @ 30% = 480mt with 40% recovery for 195mt of concentrate (I appreciate it is a stretch, but until we have completed more drilling, we can only infer what we may have)

Resource Size and Recovery Winner: AKO.I feel like I have to go AKO here because whilst 3B tonnes is a massive resource on paper, the 13% recovery means they need to move and process A LOT (like almost 3X) of material relative to AKO to produce one tonne of concentrate.

Spoiler: HIO also need to grind down to 40 microns rather than 75 microns for AKO. And AKO are also going to try grinding down to 100 microns - which could have a very significant impact on capex and opex.

Government Support
HIO - NSW State Significant Development status. The benefits are a bit unclear to me, and I am not going to spend a heap of time researching it, but NSW is not like WA in the government isn't as "pro mining". RRL have had a project with "State Significant Development" status for their McPhillamys gold mine, and that has spent years in the government review process. Of course it has been "exacerbated by covid" each project is different, but that status hasn't fast tracked the development for RRL.

NSW has a 4% ex-mine value (value less allowable deductions) - whatever that means, but that means it is comparable to what is being proposed in Madagascar.

AKO - Nothing (yet), but Paul is going to Madagascar to start discussions with the new mining minister. Also the mining code in Madagascar is being revised, and whilst there is "some risk", there has been some signalling of a 4% rate, and that should be easily absorbed by the project.

Government Support Winner: HIO. Only because we don't have anything yet for AKO.

Tenements
HIO - 3 tenements for 512kms and 1 mining license application.

AKO - 3 projects (Bekisopa, Tratramarina, Ambodilafa), no mining license.

Tenements winner: AKO. I may be biased, but I think AKO wins this one as Bekisopa seems like a more profitable project than Hawsons main project (as above), and Tratramarina is about 17kms to the coast AND on a river, so good potential there with what should be relatively straightforward logistics solution if / when that kicks off.

Studies
HIO - PFS completed in 2017 (a LONG time ago), and BFS due in Dec 2022 (let's see if it is finished on time, they did arrange a $200m equity based financing facility 3 months ago to help complete these studies.

AKO - No studies completed as yet.

Studies Winner: HIO. It is simply a more mature project - although it has been 5 years since the PFS was completed.

Ownership
Studies Winner: TIE. Both own 100% of their resources, so this one is a tie.