What an absolute fizzer.... this drilling program which was suppose to take 3-4 months last year, ended up taking 8 and what do we have to show for it ???? Our Mineral Resource Model looks worse off than it did 13 months ago now !
Mineral Resource in April 2020 DFS:
Updated Mineral Resource today:
Measured: Has DECREASED from 107Mt, down to 100Mt (What the actual flying F^%&, no mention of this in the cover letter, they would have to be the first mining company I have ever seen downgrade tonnages from measured to a lower category and are trying to pass it off as a winner) Indicated: Has Increased from 162Mt, to 174Mt Inferred: Has decreased from 131Mt to 128Mt
The company has literally downgraded more tonnes from the measured category to indicated than what they have upgraded from inferred to indicated.
I commented a fortnight ago that the cracks were beginning to appear...... they are gapping wide now for anyone who can see clearly through the information presented.
I read in the comments on the various AVZ threads why the SP has failed to rise. I for one expected it to be much higher than it is right now, after the 2nd Li Offtake deal with Chengxin something smelt fishy and this was confirmed with the 3rd offtake with Yibin.
1) The fact the company is actively looking for US$150M in equity to fund the project, in conjunction with needing US$20.5M to pay Dathomir to increase project ownership to 75%, requires US$170M (AUD$220M), a slight discount on current SP would equate to ~1.5B shares being issued, any equity provider would also want to see future options exerciseable at a higher SP to get them interested. AVZ is heading for +5 Billion shares on issue (Fully diluted).
2) A Unicorn Mining Fleet that doesn't even exist yet and is not available for commercial sale. It's all well and good to want a zero emission mining fleet, but the fact the likes of Caterpiller, Hitachi, Liebherr and Komatsu are still in the demo test phase means this Unicorn fleet is years away. Not to mention that when this technology is fine tuned and made commercially available, you will be competing with a 100 mining companies globally wanting a zero emission fleet for themselves.
3) No diversification in offtake partners. Nigel in 2020 "We have interested parties in the middle east with the Saudi's and Arabs showing interest, we continue to negotiate with European Partners, we see strong interest throughout Asia including Korea, Japan and off course China, we have an interested partner in South Africa looking to establish a battery factory and more recently we are seeing interest for North America". Fast forward 6 months and all 3 offtakes are with China.......
Makes you wonder what happened to the Saudi's ? Why haven't the Europeans signed on ? Did America really turn up late ? Why did Japan and Korea sign elsewhere ? or was it all just a chess game to get China to agree to AVZ's terms ? Either way to market did not approve, the market likes integrity and delivering on what you previously said.
4) Construction of 2 Plants, a hydro power station, a large scale power grid network, roads and associated infrastructure for the mine, a mobile workshop, office buildings, reverse osmosis plant etc are all going to be constructed by semi-skilled workers from a 250 man camp....... a 250 bloody man camp in the middle of Africa, during covid in 18-24 months.
If this was in Australia you would have a 800-1000 man construction camp with trade qualified workers. The fact this company plans to run a skeleton crew of semi skilled workers in the middle of Africa has MAJOR DELAY written all over it.
I am starting to see why the "Big Boys" are steering clear of AVZ. Delay, Delay, Delay.
FCOT wont be happening in Q1 2023. Q1 2024 isnt looking great either with a skeleton crew IMO
AVZ Price at posting:
16.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
