"and no instos will be touching it through their investment mandate."
No doubt we are still on the speculative side of town, but it is a fact Australian Super have a 5% holding in CLQ, they are fairly institutional, at the very least a substantial fund.
As you say, until CLQ is producing and banking their first $$ - it is still in spec space, but with a MC around $800m CLQ would be a fairly solid speculation. Mind you speculation is a very subjective term, and means different things to different people.
The thing that tipped the scales for me on CLQ was the fact that RF had a 20% holding in the company (at that time), he still holds 16.3%. Now we also have another fellow JZ who holds 16%, there is no doubt these 2 guys are much smarter investors than me, and their commitment helps my conviction in regard to the viability of this investment.
With regard to processing laterites, I am trusting that CLQ and their consultants know what they are doing here. I am not a metallurgist or geo physicist or geo engineer, but have read about Murrin Murrin, Wingellina and others; regarding the problems associated with processing lateritic ores, so I take it (and have to trust) that CLQ management know a lot more about the subject than me, because $900+m is a lot of money to pay back if your plant doesn't work.
I figure RF & JZ can afford to lose a few hundred million (between them they have a fair bit of skin in this game), a bit more than me; but on the other hand they wouldn't have that kind of money if they weren't making some good decisions along the way. You don't want to get carried away with names, but these people aren't just directors, they have serious money invested here, for me it helps to have such highly credentialled mining people involved, because you would think that they have some really good people advising them on this project (RF himself is renowned for his mining and tech smarts). The flowsheet for Sunrise is readily available.
My bet is that they know what they are doing, but at the end of the day no-one will know until CLQ have built the mine & plant, all imho dyor
And as Bomber78 says:"$1.40 Ni C1 costs @$14 Co/lb excluding Sc revenue. That is un-beatable"
mc
CLQ Price at posting:
$1.36 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)