Yes I'm told its pretty much simply the cobalt price. Thats my take on it too. But there are other issues afoot of course - as with any exploration target - nothing is certain.
As I said there are issues with the surface mineralization met work now being tested. (thats for the proposed open pit in the west) this would greatly enhance the SS.
There's issues with the potential resource upgrade in this bearish environment . As you know in sectors where people are taking losses the ASX tends to enforces rules more firmly than normal (like with the SS reporting). So due to that current environment and the lower CO price maybe the independent asx sanctioned geos who define the Jorc resource. (Its not CLA who do that remember- they have little say) will maybe decide to apply higher standards (ie higher grade cut offs) on the calculations to be more conservative. and to record what they now qualify to be "economically feasable" This has to be considered too. and Thats out of CLA control.
using inferred not just indicated resources in the SS may also be more enforced which may require about another 2-3 mill AUD of drilling in the new anticline (where current drill holes while very positive are still a bit widely spaced) as these issues tend to get increased as the underlying commodity price falls.
So yes IMO 95% of the issues now are just from the lower cobalt price. but I'm not for a moment confirming that everything else is all ok. Because
1.I'm not qualified to do that anyway.
2.no one ever knows that in this exploration game -theres no guarantees.
but so far talking to people involved that is their opinion. So in short -yes this orebody is not perfect shape etc, metallurgy is a bit awkward in parts near surface, but its not a complete lemon as the market is now pricing it.
Plus of course I Also cannot guarantee that management have not screwed up. I think they probably could have done this whole thing better or certain parts of it. But again its easy to criticise and hard to create and i do not have access to enough info nor enough expertise to know where they could have done better.
At USD 55-60,000 tons or more on cobalt (IMO just my well rersearched guess) this is a viable huge and strategic global resource. At higher prices its potentilly a huge a winner and you'll potentially see me calling it to 1$++ a share again at 95,000++ a ton cobalt !!. I hope so.
So as BB has always said "we will live of die by the cobalt price" - right now unfortunately were dying - and the cockroaches are coming out of the woodwork on HC to gloat and try to feed on the corpse- but if/When Co price moves higher IMO life blood should flows back into the corpse pretty fast and it will start walking again and maybe even dance again -so yeh IMO its mainly all just the cobalt price.
but for now with some good vulture opportunities showing up in other more competitvely priced but less strategic projects that are also hurting / running out of cash and unable to get financing , maybe its better to consider spending a couple of million on those opportunities too rather than just keeping on drilling and spending on only opuwo and risking 100% and waiting for that current corpse to come back from the dead.
Its always good to keep the powder dry. Im happy to get an indication how much costs have been cut for now by the directors in that department.
CLA Price at posting:
1.9¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
