Good question.
Looks like Victor chose not to disclose the FTI contacts and was seeing negative cashflow or some other LT problems but the announcements were all rosy with reducing costs, production stable, mill fixed, more shipments, larger mill throughput, more ore mined..
it all seemed to be going in the right direction and nothing indicated otherwise
The market clearly smelt the rat as it went from 10c to 5c on the CR then kept going lower to 3.5c.
Market worked out there was a serious problem here and it wasnt sustainable before any of us knew anything publicly.
The FTI meetings and talks to recap or change debt terms were never disclosed till now.
The only solution that I see remains Trafigura doing a deal with their Nova offtake partner IGO.
IGO has clout over Trafigura, no one else has as they can threaten to pull their Nova offtake and go to BHP solely & they have $780M cash at bank so it make sense to corner the Oz Ni market now while its burning.
AF BHP both ignored PAN and decided on ludicrous big boy fantasy island spending instead.
So nothing indicates that cashburn they blew of $11B & 1.2B each will make them have any interest in PAn right now.
IGO on the other hand has bid for PAN at 47c before and has numerous tenements around its mine mill plus $45M cash in that 15% holding that they stand to lose if someone else takes it.
$100M to save $45M cash plus buy that BIG MILL and MINE makes sense & unlocks a future mining precinct for them dirt cheap.
IGO is the only white knight imho.
PAN Price at posting:
3.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held