Trying to unravel why VMM is getting sold down off the back of...

Trying to unravel why VMM is getting sold down off the back of the MRE.

One thing that is concerning me is all of the met testwork to date has been done on samples with grades much higher than the resource (a classic metallurgy red flag). For example:
MRE JORC - 668 ppm MREO
Bulk samples in the met program:
Northern - 1,594 ppm MREO
Cupim South - 1,388 ppm MREO
Capao da Onca - 1,671 ppm MREO
RIbeirao - 1,074 ppm MREO

So on average, the met bulk composite samples were 114% higher in magnet grade than the MRE. Not very representative?

The reason this matters, is MEI's extensive data set of over 150 samples shows a correlation whereby rare earth extraction increases with MREE grade. Below I have added VMM's bulk samples and converted the MREO to MREE to align with MEI's plot. You can see the VMM met data aligns very closely with the Soberbo data. I've added a guess at a trend line matching the Soberbo grade vs extraction relationship to extrapolate down to the MRE grade.


So based on this, it could be the case their bulk recoveries with 114% higher input sample head grades will likely have around 15% (absolute) higher MREE recoveries based on MEI's data set, so average 60% recovery in this met data set may drop down to 45% when applied across more representative of the MRE sample set.

Little details like this need to be ironed out ASAP by VMM. We have already seen MEI get hammered for brushing over their environmental buffer zones, it doesn't pay to gild the lily. I would love to see VMM punch through 100+ individual samples like MEI has and show definitively they have better extraction than MEI. The above chart suggests MEI has the upper hand for the same head sample grade...