re: haddington potential vs gip/p If you want a tantalum stock P...

re: haddington potential vs gip/p If you want a tantalum stock P have a look at Gip.

Just a suggestion.

Egyptian based.

They have an off-take in place for 480,000lbs/yr + an option to supply another 70,000lbs/yr at same price with one of the 2 biggest tantalum consumers(rumour has it its Cabots)

Mine will be processing at 2Mtpa/yr by end of 2007.

They have mandated the IFC(world bank commercial arm) to sort debt/equity arrangements.Two World Bank loans are currently being organised with debt equity split being 60/40 at this stage.

Their cost of production is reputedly below $10/lb giving it a very competitive place in the market as tantalum prices have been squeezed by the reduction of tantalum used in capacitors over the last couple of years.

Price of tantalum?

Long term off-takes tend to attract a premium of between $40 and $60/lb.Why such a wide spread?Because no one knows exactly what these companies agree to.Its very cloak and dagger stuff which therefore makes tantalum unsexy(not like Uranium or base metals atm)Your mine has to be big and have good economies of scale,as SGW's Wodgina/Greenbushes used to have but their costs have risen dramatically in the last couple of years.


Spot price?Virtually non-existant apart from small contracts and these tend to be done through the likes of Haddington or illegal frican mining.But as of late around $25-$30/lb for these small contracts.

Gip is also drilling the old mines where the Pharoahs obtained a fair bit of their gold to the south.One tenament,Seiga,has shown very promising trench sampling and is currently being drilled to see if they can confirm these trench grades at depth.

Imho well worth a look if your looking at HDN.

Just a bit hard to get the stock.You have to be patient.Trouble is if they turn up decent grades at Seiga it could quickly go over 20c.

d.