Share
237 Posts.
lightbulb Created with Sketch. 27
clock Created with Sketch.
10/11/21
15:02
Share
Originally posted by szopen:
↑
As usual a lot of cheering and screaming. One can wonder about the credibility of some of posters here who were stating that the DFS is finished, ready and will be published immediately. Let's have a look at what the announcement actually says, not what we want to see there. 1. Combination with MEP is used as a reason for the delay in DFS. Exactly what I have posted yesterday. 2. Team is working hard to deliver a robust DFS. While watching risks and controlling operational costs (including the directors pay I guess). 3. ML approval. Still waiting, will need to submit PERP and have that approved as well. This is out of management hands, and not a worry in my opinion. 4. Site infrastructure. Power. Considering gas turbine where exhaust gas can be used for drying the kaolin. Short term solution and could be converted to running on hydrogen in the future. My reading: still thinking about how to supply power. While cogeneration is a good idea it requires pretty balanced process flow, not the simplest thing to accomplish when the same plant is going to produce a variety of products. Roads. Some designs have been done for modifications to the unsealed road and submitted for review. Trucks will not operate during school bus hours. Nothing to see here. Water. Design work on pipeline connection is ongoing. This is very good. Previous idea of trucking water to site for operation of wet processing plant was a poor idea. 4. Mine design. Revised location of starter pit to better suit PRM. Increased the feed rate from 250ktpa to 300ktpa. Now talking about 120ktpa of output for higher grade product like CRM and PRM and potential 25ktpa of lower grade/price product. Looks like testing has shown that lower rate of recovery will be needed to meet product requirements. This is important to understand as while the nameplate capacity and predicted output are as stated the actual rates will be known only once in operation. 5. Processing. Established flow sheet for the process. Change from PRM in 25kg bags as agreed in BOA to bulker bags with the product being milled and bagged by a MSI partner. Discussions with MSI ongoing about changing the BOA. Long way from flowsheet to finished design. Change from 25kg bag. Positive: no need for capex for milling and bagging plant and a chance of getting to commercial production earlier as we are talking about long lead time imported machinery. Negatives: this will result in lower price per ton (difficult to say how much lower but a fair bit), no ability to offer bagged product to other customers, unlikely any control over what is branded on the bag. 6. Process design engineering. Primero is completing draft engineering design and initial budget costs for Phase 1. Capex will be higher. Work on specifying the long lead time items is ongoing, nothing will be ordered before ML and decision on what we actually want to do. Decided to engage engineering contractor to start working on ECI which means a little more detailed engineering design. Expect that the plant construction will take 9 months from start. Important words bolded above. This is months from final design. Higher capex was expected. Some design work will now start. Construction in 9 months means production in mid CY2023 at the earliest. 7. Direct shipping ore. Considering going this way. Based on PFS cost estimates this will require capex of 28m and will allow to generate some income in a shorter time frame. Potentially helping to fund the capex for CRM and PRM plant. 8. Distribution, logistics. DSO to be shipped loose bulk. CRM and PRM in bulker bags. Not sure about the dust suppression and contamination risk of loose bulk shipping. 9. Funding Talking to some people. 10. Project development. To DSO or not to DSO, this is the question. 11. Concrete. Testing ongoing. 12. HPA. No news on MOU with AEM as expected. Considering using new, different flowsheet. Rare Earth Elements added as current buzzword. 13. Cosmetics. Investigating this area. Overall. Just my opinion based on the announcement. DFS will be significantly delayed, a lot of time has been spent chasing blue sky applications and not enough time and money went into design of the actual plant. Actual plant design is in the very early stages and the DFS will be based on initial design not on final design. Management has realised that: 1. It will take a long time to design what needs to be build, long time to construct and commission. 2. The capex required will be much more than expected even without the milling and bagging plant. 3. Going back to DSO is probably the only way to reach any revenue streams within CY2022, this can be used as part of funding for Phase 1 plant. Looks a bit like back to square one, nice to see you again DSO. DSO will provide some revenue but not premium product that can be branded or used for more complex applications. Again all of the above is just my opinion and I have been wrong in the past.
Expand
Soooo we still need more money and we expect more delays. Great. Everyone's so caught up with blue sky applications they're not even thinking about getting it out of the ground. Cool