Some thoughts
In the face of the current Cobalt price week Cobalt price I think management are now doing what they can to conserve the remain A$6.655 million Cash on hand. i.e
'At the end of the Quarter, the company held approximately A$6.655 million in cash reserves, with ongoing costs to reduce significantly in the current Quarter due to completion of all work programs and significant reduction in staff and consulting numbers."
So we should see a significant reduction in cash burn from this current quarter
I am not particularly happy that the consultants have done quite a bit of work in the last quarter and presumably been paid for it however it cannot be shared with shareholders.
1) While the additional drilling of the North West Anticline Target are not sufficiently dense to be included in a JORC for the North Western Anticline target, that they have still not been publish the most recent drill results. If they published them we could map them ourselves and draw our own conclusion. So I will send Brendan an e mail and ask for their ASX release ASAP. (PS note in the in the last drilling report on the Western extension CLA put a resource target in the press release even though there is no JROC report for the Western Extension yet)
2) The metallurgy seems as inconclusive as ever I wonder if they have the right consultants working on it - irregularity between chemical assays and mineralogical reports. Anyway lets not pay them anymore money - any large entity that may be interested in taking on the Opuwa project will have access to their own or the very best metallurgists.
3) The mining plan paid for without completion of the JORC - cart before the horse.
4) Totally inadequate marketing of the Opuwa project there are big deals being done, however our management does not seem to be able to access the key players in the industry. Yes this is a cobalt project however if we can get the metallurgy right the copper grades in the North West Anticline of 0.40 - 0.60 will be an important bi product factor. Note below CATL, LG, Tesla, VW, Daimler etc joining a massive Nickel Cobalt project in Indonesia cost circa US$4 billion.
To me Opuwa should be of natural interest to German companies given its closer, Nambia is the largest recipient of German foreign aid and is a good rule of law, working conditions and stable mining jurisdiction, if not I believe large Western companies or Chinese or Russian could be interested. They are looking at the same demand charts as us and will see a Battery mineral shortage coming – Nickel first, Lithium, Manganese and cobalt will follow – see latest chart below on demand.
IF I was a large company like these I would believe in Namibia before Indonesia IMHO have a history of changing laws and taxes
Ok give management one tick - putting in the Environment Impact assessment is a big plus and given it is usually one of the longest lead time factors outside company control in getting regulatory approval for a mining license that is good.
I fully expect the cobalt price to start picking up from mid 2020 as EV Cobalt demand picks up and then increase back towards the US$60,000 by circa 2023 per ton. See the projected demand versus 2018 as the already committed battery plants ramp up.
If Brendan cannot market the Opuwa project he needs to get some good low cost people who can.
GLTA Thai
Cobalt in Batteries projected to grow 6.32 times from 2018 to 2028 from 58,000 tonnes to 367,000 tons and while I don't have the numbers look at the ramp up in Battery Cobalt demand to 2023 looks like 3 times at least
Tesla likely joined CATL, LG, Volkswagen and Daimler in the enterprise.
Tesla A Part Of Huge Consortium For Nickel And Cobalt In Indonesia
Tesla likely joined CATL, LG, Volkswagen and Daimler in the enterprise.
Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
With the scale of productionTeslaalready has forEVsandVolkswagenwants to achieve in the next years, the supply of lithium, nickel, and cobalt must be steady. This is probably why the companies have decided to join forces in building a mining plant in Indonesia.CATL,LG Chem, andDaimlerare also involved in the project, according to Luhut Pandjaitan, Coordinating Maritime Minister.
The information comes fromAntaranews.com, the official Indonesian government news agency. And is supported by older news fromReuters, which still did not name the partners involved in what Luhut calls a consortium.
More Nickel And Cobalt Related News:
The total investment in the factory –which is in the nickel mining hub of Sulawesi island, more specifically at the PT Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) – is estimated at US$ 4 billion. A lot of money for a single company to invest in. In such a context, a consortium is a great way to get it going.
According toMining.com, Indonesia bears large “reserves of both nickel and cobalt used in lithium battery cathodes”. Until the mining plant gets fully operational,most of the world's cobalt will still come from Congo, with lots of concerns about child labor exploitation.
The plant construction was expected to start last January and it will be completed in three years. We’d expect to hear about a production start in 2020 and about full power around 2022.
Concerning Tesla’s role in the enterprise, Luhut said he has no idea on it. “The consortium is the one that coordinates everything.”
Another interesting remark from Luhut is that he wants the “negative feeling” towards the investment being only Chinese should end since the partners in the consortium are LG, CATL, VW, Tesla, and Mercedes.
We are not very sure about why the inhabitants of Morowali are concerned about a pure Chinese investment there, but our Indonesian readers are more than welcome to tell us more about that.
There is still no official confirmation from Tesla of having made any such investment. Anyway, it is very unlikely an Indonesian minister would speak to the government news agency about Tesla investing in the country just to have that denied by the carmaker.
Tesla has already stated it wants to be in control of battery production. Being in control of the resources to build batteries is very coherent with that intention.
Sources:Antaranews.comviaTeslarati,DetikFinance,Mining.com, andReuters
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