General discussion, page-7482

I'm not predicting it will happen, it's a "what if" scenario. We all have to remember that the spodumene concentrate that PLS was starting to produce went from under $US400/t to over $5,000/t.
Now do the numbers on WA1 assuming the underlying product went up by a factor of 12. It's what makes the DCF and NPV type calculations worthless, as no-one imagines the height prices of commodities can rise by that they often do. In 1978 silver was $US5/oz in 1980 it was $US50/oz. Copper was $US0.70/lb in 2003 in 2006 it was $US4.00/lb. Lithium recently etc. For that matter look at gas prices going up over 700% from 2021 to 2022 in Europe, and that's something that is plentiful...


My point being that extreme price moves happen all the time and will probably happen eventually to Niobium, in which case you want to own a very profitable mine in the lower price times as it gives high grade ore bodies much more value than most realise...

Currently copper has taken off in price to new record highs, yet projects like Caravel just sit there despite having 3M tonnes of copper in the ground.
Yet if someone found a 75M tonne shallow ore body of copper with a 4% grade (the same 3M tonnes of copper), it's price would rocket to many multiples of Caravel and it would be developed very quickly. The reason being it would be profitable at any price of copper and will make super profits in great years.


The same rules apply to us and are never shown by DCF or NPV type calculations... The other problem with DCF and NPV calculations is that they discount the future, which makes an assumption more high grade niobium will be found in the future by 'others' so mining 'now' is worth more than mining in 10 years time. It's an assumption that could be very very wrong...