I'd say they will get to name plate throughput quicker than that
They were never going to push a red button on day 1 and get 1,000 tonnes a day without any hiccups
Keep in mind that this was just an idea 16 months ago
The went fast track for a plant that only cost $20 million avoiding debt and major share dilution to shareholders (us)
The fact Butcherbird is in production with only 150 million shares on issue is unprecedented
I'd fully expect that there have been machinery issues, a few mistakes, a few tweaks here and there, probably staffing issues, parts supply, flight issues, covid delays etc etc
To expect it has been clear sailing since day 1 would not be logical
However, here we are 3 or 4 months in from pressing that red button and I would think that things are on track and that the issues have been ironed out and we would be at name production (which is about 1,000 tonnes per day)
The only question mark I have is what grade are they getting?
We will have to wait and see what is reported by the company.
Looking forward, we can refer to Pirate's posting of EMM prices, which are at US$4,000 a tonne
In an August 2019 presentation E25 referenced the price at US$2,000
The price was US$2,400 only three months ago
Euro manganese have used US$4,600 in their modelling
Think about this:
The global market for EMM (that is high purity 99.7% Mn) is about 2 million tonnes per annum
So that is currently about US$8 billion a year
With 95% of that coming out of China (with environmentally disastrous production methods I'd imagine)
I would be guessing that the big steel conglomerates in Sth Korea and Japan would be feeling pretty uneasy about this
If E25 could, overtime, capture just 10% of this market, the numbers are extraordinary and I'm sure lockyg could come up with some estimates
Then, bubbling away in the background is the battery grade Mn which can be produced from the above EMM and sells at a lower price of course
The world's TOP FIVE EV battery makers are Asian
So while Vulcan etc can announce deals in Europe (sending it's market cap to $1.4 billion in the process) it's only a matter of time before someone does a deal with E25 and I'm guessing discussions on this are quite advanced
Deals with these large companies take time so patience and vision is required
In the meantime we await for an update from the company on the current DSO business grade and throughput
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