Originally posted by ozblue
Katanga Mining, mostly owned by Glencore has their resource statement on line for those interested in the types of grade their mine has........
KATANGA MINING LIMITED MEASURED AND INDICATED MINERAL RESOURCE as at December 31, 2017 Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources.....Mt....... %TCu ....................... %TCo
....................KTO ........................................................78.1 ..........3.92 ...........................0.48
................Mashamba East Open Pit .........................60.0.......... 1.68........................... 0.62
................T-17 Open Pit/T-17 Underground .............13.6........... 3.89.......................... 0.61
KOV Open Pit/KOV Underground/KTE Underground 110.4 .....4.75 ...........................0.53
.......................Kananga Mine .....................................4.1............. 1.61............................ 0.79
........................Tilwezembe Open Pit .........................9.5.............. 1.89.......................... 0.60
........................KITD Tailings..................................... 7.8.............. 1.49........................... 0.16
..............................TOTAL .........................................283.5........... 3.60........................... 0.54
From here......
http://www.katangamining.com/~/medi...2/media/newsreleases/news2018/2018-01-31a.pdf
That resource is a very impressive 10 Million tonnes of Copper and 1.5 Million tonnes of Cobalt!!!
However 3 aspects stand out.
1. The highest grade cobalt ore is underground and in relatively small quantities
2. All the cobalt grades are less than 1%
3. The cobalt grade in the old tailings is at 0.16%!!
In annexure c on page 7 it shows a fairly constant cobalt recovery of 65%.
Doing some quick rough numbers for myself on a 250,000t/a plant, and assuming the 'ore' we can find on the tenements are around the average of the Katanga Mine (.54%).............
I get 250,000(t) X .0054(grade) X .65% (recovery) = 877.5 tonnes of cobalt. WFE holders will only be entitled to 50% of this or 438.75 tonnes.
Even at $100,000/tonne, for a cobalt concentrate, not cobalt metal, gross revenue before any expenses would only be $US43.8m/a.
If payability on a cobalt concentrate was 65% of the LME price (assuming $100,000/t), the total revenue would come back to ~$US28.5M (again BEFORE any expenses!!).
AS I stated above, these numbers are mine, working out how the plant would go if using the average ore of the biggest richest cobalt mine in the world (Katanga). Of course the ore bodies just lying around this area could be so much better than Katanga but I'm not going to bet my money on that.
Hilarious......According to your calculations Glencore's cobalt operations isn't making any money either after cost + taxes as such going broke!
Seriously why bother posting useless calcs? Remember they are Glencores resources and they are making massive profits and are currently a multi billion dollar operation. That bodes extremely well for WFE.
Gelncore can comfortably afford to cease sales for the next 9mths due to their contamination issue .Honestly I think you need to go back to the drawing board....like right back to the beginning
