As to grades versus market value - the team are in the process of defining the resource through drilling and testing to work out how much they have in the ground there. You can have spectacular grades but it doesn't mean anything if it's a 5 x 5 m deposit 500 m below the surface. You'd spend more money digging to get to the deposit than the deposit is worth.
Once they have enough drill data the company will be able to put out a resource estimate. How much drill data they have and how closely spaced it will define the degree of confidence in the resource. Then a feasibility study is done to work out if the mine is economic and how much profit can be made.
Things working in the company's favour that will bring down the costs:
- They are expanding a previous discovery that has underground workings there. So, they don't have to put an adit or decline (access tunnels) into to where the ore is - on a greenfields site that is all upfront cost that has to be worn before the good stuff can be extracted. So "all" they have to do is put in ventilation, lighting, make safe any areas that are unstable.
- Infrastructure costs at surface will also be reduced because it's an old mine.
There are a lot of unknowns that need to be answered before a solid valuation could be made - but also the liquidity is very low - anyone wanting to buy in on market, at volume doesn't have a lot on offer to snap up. So any big buyers are going to need to have good confidence in the valuation. Once that confidence is there, a "step up" rerate could happen.
EM2 Price at posting:
67.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
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