Going to post some thoughts on the Nouveau Monde numbers that...

Going to post some thoughts on the Nouveau Monde numbers that have been discussed over the last couple of pages and why Talga will be able to achieve much better margins, apologies if I'm repeating something others have already said.

I read NM's BFS for their Matawinie graphite mine (well skimmed it, it's nearly 400 pages) and I can't see them clearly state anywhere the amount of ore they're extracting annually to get their 100ktpa of graphite flake concentrate. It's also definitely not in any of their presentation material and I'm not surprised why. The clue was on page 48 (below) coupled with a reference to the plant running 5 days a week

6,449t/day x 250 days = 1,612,250t of ore PER YEAR.

NM: 1.6Mt ore -> 100,000t concentrate -> 42,000t anode material (2.6% of mined ore) + 3,000t purified flake + 55,000t byproducts
TLG (Vittangi only): 100,000t ore > 19,000t talnode-C (19% of mined ore)

NM are mining 16x the material to get only 2.2x the finished product! That is a huge advantage in keeping costs down. Really brings in to perspective how ahead of the curve MT was to spot the value in high-quality of this resource.

On top of that Talga have the different sale prices because in NM's presentation they are using $7,151/t for uncoated anode "material" while Talga is using $11,250/t for coated spherical graphite material (Talnode-C). Note: it looks like NM are planning to eventually do coated spherical graphite as well because this is what their 2,000tpa pilot plant will be for, but not reflected in their numbers yet.
Both will be using hydro power which gives a huge cost advantage over those that can't (eg EGR)

I put together this comparison table, let me know if I've got this right:




And that's before TLG ramp up output beyond 100ktpa through expansion plans (Niska, UK etc etc). I know where I'd rather put my money! Positives I can see for NM? Better website and better graphic design, not much else.