It seems like there are a lot of non-holder 'market experts' that have come out of the woodwork recently.
I would agree that in general sulphide deposits are generally cheaper to develop but where are all the Ni/Co sulphide deposits with a large resource that are coming up to fill the requirements of battery producers. There are a lot of wannabe nickel/cobalt stocks that still have a lot of work to do in front of them and the vast majority (with a very few exceptions) are dreaming if they expect to be in production before ARL. ARL has $50M of historical exploration spending to get their project to the stage it is now. Its very easy to believe that lots of new mines are going to come into the market before 2022 but people in the industry know how long things take to get into production.
What you are seeing here is a systemic change in the market Ni and Co market. Unless you don't believe that electric cars/batteries going to be in huge demand over the next decade at least? In that case somebody better tell the battery and car companies spending billions of dollars right now. In the early 2000s Iron ore was $30/mt, copper was less than $2000/mt. Even during the GFC and the recent lows, did you ever see the prices get this low? I think it is extremely unlikely Ni/Co prices test their recent lows in the next decade given the structural shift.
Also before anyone says substitution with different types of battery which doesn't use Cobalt/Ni - for anyone that knows anything about this, batteries have to go though years of testing before they can be sold/used by consumers, following that large numbers of battery producers need to shift to producing a type of battery with a different chemistry to affect demand.
ARL currently is a very attractive proposition for mining companies and even battery end users as they provide a very large resource with the ability to scale up.
Look at the types of assets the likes of Rio, S32 etc buy up - they are typically very large resources, a low operating cost on the cost curve and have a very long life. For a battery producer it is also a one stop shop to get their raw materials and in case demand increases - they can scale up production as needed. Very few projects offer this.
I'm not particularly concerned by the 2022-2023 timeframe - that is assuming ARL go it alone. The reason it may take that long is due to long lead time items like autoclaves - a major miner/battery producer can accelerate the process. I wouldn't be surprised if they get taken out before that.
I hope everyone does their own research and doesn't just read what they see on HC before they invest or chose not to because there is a lot of rubbish on here.
PS: As well as some more thorough research on the Ni/Co market. I'd recommend the 'market experts' do some research on Scandium. CLQ and AUZ will likely be laying the groundwork in growing the market. You can't find that in sulphide deposits.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4099363-scandium-boom-next-look-scandium-miners
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