It's All About Assemblage

Off the chart thread and on topic with it's own heading to keep the mods happy. It's mind boggling that many here a long time still can't or refuse to understand my message that min sands is all about assemblage, recoveries, quality specifications, bespoke off-take contracts, pricing and a highly competitive industry that see's most projects left on the shelf. Recent comments include:

@smulv "their best rutile % is less than the anomaly at nhatutze."

@jpsorbara "their best rutile % is less than the anomaly at nhatutze. Should have results on that soon."

@beisha "I havnt bothered to look at the other peer comparisons"

The SVM example raised by @Peppie is excellent in illustrating why the value in mineral sand deposits are critically related to assemblage. This table is taken from a Sprott report into SVM June 2020, to which I have added Mutamba and Corridor's KM assemblage. Note the Sprott table references 'Resource' not 'Reserve' grades (because it flatters SVM), while I have put in Mutamaba's Reserve grade (6% not 3.9%) for reality and a range of gardes for MRQ. VHM is expressed as in-ground %, and in-ground value is calculated before accounting for recoveries which can make a huge difference. Coburn has excellent recoveries due to it's geology, Thunderbird is flattered here because it has poor recoveries. Corridor also has poor recoveries due to the assemblage as per the recent met work.


Min Sands is so complex once the processing, met and min quality etc is delved into that simplified broad brush comps like the table above are often misleading. Whats very clear though I hope is that THM% grade is almost irrelevant when comparing apples with oranges. Pre-recovery losses, SVM's 1% Rutile without any by-product credits has an in-ground value of $12.20 vs Mutamba $10.78.

MRQ is a bit different, calculated using a mix Resource grade (Rt and Zr) and product content in HMC as per recent met work because of the large number of various mineral that do or don;t report to the Ilm or Ti-Mag streams. MRQ's in-ground value includes an assumption of Va-Ti-Mag credits at $90/t and is obviously above the recovered in-ground value after recoveries and applying a product discount for selling a non-mag concentrate instead of finished premium products (ie lower prices).

SVM will produce a single premium rutile product with possibly little losses recovery from the resource grade. SVM at 1% THM has roughly double the value of Corridor ore at 6% THM. Not sure I can be any clearer. Punt min sand exploration stocks by all means, but to not care about understanding what you're punting is a recipe for disaster imo...