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24/06/20
15:52
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Originally posted by Digity1:
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On TMT mgmts ability, I would point out that Michael Fry, TMT Chair oversaw total destruction of wealth on a gas play in South Africa (ASX: CEL). He basically sat on his hands for 6 years relying on one bet that the SA government would eventually approve the legislation required to remove the fracking embargo. That never happened and the ASX ended up giving 'show cause' to not de-list CEL as the company didn't meet the minimum requirement of an ASX listed company (ie. actually doing something). The Co. recapitalised, he got the boot, new resources in South America and SP goes from half a pip to 25c. I certainly wouldn't invest with TMT with him at the helm and certainly not a V only producer with higher production costs for V than a more diversified resource production base in TNG (when in production). V is such an opaque market and there’s a reason few new V mines come to market.
Positively, TMT in it’s very short history has delivered in line with shareholder expectations although I would point out there is a long way to go. Your announcement this morning although encouraging and good news in my view puts TMT about 2-3 years behind TNG. You’ll be 12 mths away from kicking off a FEED. From memory $10/lb has been used in the DFS and I would imagine any financiers will be stress testing at half that price vs production costs of $4/lb. Until VRB gets traction commercially which can only happen when the cost of production on electrolyte is reduced significantly, there’s only risk to the V price. We saw when V spike 2 years ago Chinese started using niobium as a more economic substitute in rebar which as I understand has continued.
Back to TNG - it seems many of us can't see the wood for the trees at the moment and are teetering on investment exhaustion.
The biggest negative for me was TNG blew 2 years boxing at shadows on the titanium business which in my opinion is the best part of the TNG model and where we sit now is 2 years I'm willing to forgive as in time I believe TIVAN will change the pigment market. Look at consolidation that's occurred in that industry recently and the prices that have been paid for businesses. That's why I am primarily invested in TNG. The vanadium is a secondary benefit in my opinion from the diversity that TIVAN will offer (when in production) but the pigment is the jewel in the crown.
Everyone seems to be thinking that our debt is unachievable and its Paul and John that are the key men seeking this. We have mandated (ie. paying as a service provider) Kfw to develop a financial model and appropriate structure and go and source the debt finance. No different to an underwriter at IPO. They don't get paid for 2 years to not deliver. They never would have offered TNG a mandated in the first place. They don’t mandate what they can’t deliver.
To me the TNG video you present and are bagging out looks like it’s been created for that very purpose whereas the TMT video looks like it’s an all of company concept. Debt financiers don’t want to see the metrics of your ore body and every little detail about your operation. The TNG video is a high level marketing piece you'd expect to see as an introductory to a insto meeting. Those insto's want to see a stress tested financial model with significantly lower resource pricing and operational costs than built into a bullish DFS. Both TMT and TNG have develop their respective material for their different audience. A comparison is irrelevant in my opinion as the two are many years apart in their cycle as I mentioned about.
TNGers should not forget SMS have taken 20 laborious months to run one of the most in depth FEEDs I’ve ever seen that upon completion and in line with their tendering process, will provide a fixed price EPC and process and product guarantees. That eliminates construction risk and operational risk. Think about that for a minute. That's what SMS/Kfw will be presenting to debt financiers. They won't be presenting an unproven or risky technology as is suggest. They are presenting something that has been provided with guarantees, eliminating operational and delivery risk by one of the best in the business in SMS.
In my mind the debt is ring-fenced and think we potentially get something from the Vimson offtake and NAIF. The company has always sold Vimson as a funding partner as much as a shareholder so I would be expecting to see some form of pre-production financing in that offtake. This comes back to completion of the FEED and knowing CAPEX. You can't start getting the various financing activities finalised until the FEED is finished. Perhaps the 45 days extension to the Vimson offtake is telling?
I’ve been dormant on TNG for a while but I have become rather excited again of late. You don’t issue those performance rights unless you aren’t about to deliver the results.
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have you thought of the possibility that SMS may complete the FEED study and come up with a much larger capex then originally thought and it may change the whole economics of the project therefore no longer be a goer? IMO SMS are being Commisioned by TNG so they don't have as much to lose by TIVAN failing? do you think the 20 months to complete a FEED is a red flag? I'm not suggesting it is but it's worth a thought biggest red flag for me is the most ignored issue by the TNG faithful and it's the BOOT titanium pigment plant? so who's gonna fund another 400 million ontop? economics of the DFS work on a high end titanium pigment being produced so if no one wants to fund fund the titanium pigment plant then what? it's capex should not be sneezed at, another 400 million is very significant and if TNG have to debt fund it how does that effect the project economics, another 400 million debt would surely hit the NPV And IRR significantly it's a very big assumptions to suggest someone will fund a 400 million titanium pigment plant for TNG, no annoucments since the DFS about any progress on this! nothing! dead silence yeah there's 3 commodities but it's all pie in the sky to me. a mine in the middle of Australia and a process plant in Darwin? so they have to dig up dirt and take it half way across Australia to process it? hope it does come off for many of you but I have very significant doubts