G'day jogo, JandJ, John8769 I see some similarities with VHM's deposit in NW Victoria but I much prefer AHK as an investment:
They both look to have huge scale potential. Ours ultimately might even prove to be bigger (if the >100 square kilometre thorium response continues to indicate the spread of mineralisation, as drilling to date suggests) but we are far less advanced in our exploration than they are so we're clearly not as far down the resources road. However I think time may show us to be on a better road - and overall journey - than them. I do acknowledge their recent offtake agreement for some of their expected product. Unsurprising that they would find willing Chinese buyers who I imagine would be delighted if not surprised to be able to make inroads into getting supply from Australia at a time like this...
Jurisdiction - Despite a recent and concerning rise in naive and unrealistic tokenism and idealism in Australia, it still has advantages over other countries IMO. Good luck to those that invest elsewhere but after several decades, I've lost too much money with overseas mining investments to ever punt them again.
Within Australia, I'd rather be exploring/developing/mining in remote northern Queensland compared to north-western Victoria, with its much more intensive local land use.
One land owner not ~40 - I feel sorry for VHM trying to create much needed REEs and heavy minerals while having to negotiate with I think around 40 landowners. By contrast, AHK's Sandy Mitchell project is in a much, much more remote area and with only 1 landowner. Australia needs to be more amenable to much needed development in situations involving critical minerals that may be needed urgently in future.
AHK no overburden -v VHM $140M cost?? - On what's been drilled to date (?? circa 200 holes) AHK's paydirt is essentially from surface, with no - or no material - overburden to shift (and replace) in order to extract the REEs and heavy minerals. By contrast, what I've seen of VHM's project(s) had significant overburden - which of course has first to be stripped and parked, then replaced after extraction operations have finished. That's a lot of dirt to move, twice.
My vague recollection was that circa $140M had been assessed by VHM re shifting the overburden. I can't recall what degree of certainty was on it or the exact figure but AHK shouldn't have any such heavy early costs given mineralisation from surface in all holes drilled to date as I understand it. That's a big plus for AHK - cost-wise, approvals-wise, timing-wise etc.
Incidentally, because of the remarkably amenable nature of the Sandy Mitchell deposit, several AHK announcements - some very recent - have shown the possibility of obtaining a very high grade concentrate simply by doing simple gravity processing (dry or wet). There's even has been talk of possibly being able to process (dry) while mining and return the sand, in one process. If that proves to be a viable option for some throughput that would have very positive implications for early production, reduced costs, simplicity and more.
AHK Market Cap ~$9M -v- VHM Market Cap ~ $90M. VHM probably has circa $10M more cash than AHK although their spending is much higher at present of course.
Finally a comment directed to none of you but instead to others who comment on short term market reactions (or none). May I suggest to them that is a distracting waste of their time. We can all see market response or otherwise - it is past data. Surely effort is better spent on analysing whether an announcement is beneficial (or otherwise) to a stock and then Buying/Selling or just Holding as appropriate. As a believer in a story - as I am here - I love it when a great announcement comes out and there is no price action as it means that Value has gone up while Price stayed where it was. Surely that's good rather than a point of implied criticism or anxiety? Just saying ...
Really good story here, I think. Yes, it's a lousy spec. market but that won't last forever. The seeds of the next boom are sown in poor markets as the specs are currently experiencing. I don't think this very well-priced story is going to take too long to germinate and flourish but however long it takes, I'll wait it out.
(20min delay)