Scandium, Cobalt, and Water Purification: CleanTeQ HoldingsA Microcap Teaser Solution In Advance !!
(Australian stock exchange CLQ, OTC pinks CTEQF).
CleanTeQ is sure to be the answer to future teasers you will be reading about from resource gurus, To save you all the trouble of solving them, I decided to write this article.
My portfolio was grotesquely overweight in gold and silver positions, and in moments of anxiety I thought it would be a good idea to diversify and take a few positions in something other than gold mines, royalty companies, Mongolian exploration companies, and small-cap copper miners with major operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Thus I made a small speculation in CleanTeQ, solely on the basis that mining titan Robert Friedland was the Chairman, and CleanTeQ was the only resource company I could find that seemed to be in a position to mine scandium, a very rare metal that sells for a couple of thousand dollars a kilo.
My due diligence was so slight that I was embarrassed to emphasize my position to the readers at Stock Gumshoe. We are supposed to study these things a little more than I did for CleanTeQ. And after entering at 50 cents, the stock promptly dropped to 35 cents or so, making me glad that I did not look foolish by publicizing my position.
As the weeks went by, I started to find more information on the company that I should have found out beforehand. This was partly accidental, partly from other Gumshoe readers, and partly from new announcements and company news that occurred after I took a position. But the findings were all very positive, and because the company is so interesting I thought it warranted its own thread apart from the hard asset thread which I moderate.
I have a full long position and high hopes. And I thank Secretsquirrel, Griffin, Larry McKenna, and several others who helped fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle.
Below are my findings, opinions, and summary on CleanTeQ Holdings:
BUSINESS MODEL CleanTeQ is a hybrid company based with three bases: scandium mining and production, cobalt mining and production, and water purification. This seems like an odd combination, but as you will see, it is not. It is a stroke of genius. And I will explain why we should care about scandium and cobalt.
(1) The company is starting production of the Syerston mine, the world’s only scandium mine;
(2) The company will also produce significant amounts of cobalt as a co-product to the scandium;
(3) The company has a large-scale water purification technology, which will target municipalities,
Industrial operations with waste water problems, and mines, which also have water problems
PROSPECTS FOR THE THREE SEGMENTS
(1) Scandium is a very rare metal that usually occurs in only small amounts that are not economical to mine. It is mostly available as a by-product and the market is opaque, usually between private parties. Scandium has very beneficial applications in aerospace, aviation, and technology, but has not been widely applied because there is not a sufficiently reliable supply of it.
(2) Cobalt is essential in many batteries. Lithium gets all the investment press, but a majority of the battery formulations need cobalt, which is rare compared to lithium. Cobalt has a similar supply situation as scandium, it is mostly a by-product and is not commonly a prime mining target in and of itself. But demand for the electric energy market is growing rapidly and cobalt demand is growing and will continue to grow accordingly. Supply chains on cobalt are iffy.
(3) Water purification is a pressing need throughout the world. Cities with lots of people, industrialized places with lots of factories, or mines with waste water, all have a real and pressing need for large scale water purification. I think most people can accept this premise of widespread demand without a lot of documentation.
HOW DO THESE SEGMENTS RELATE TO EACH OTHER ? I cannot get too technical about the water purification technology, but I will try to explain what I understand, and how it relates to the scandium and cobalt operations. They call it Continuous Flow Ionization. Ionization is not a proprietary technology per se, but CleanTeQ has developed a way to implement ionization in a continuous feed, automated loop that improves volume, improves economics, is reasonably priced for installation, and can be custom-modified to specific waste problems. It can be used in conjunction with other filtration techniques. Further, it can be modified TO EXTRACT CERTAIN SUBSTANCES from the feed waste water. This is done by modifying the resins that are used in the ionization process.
Now it so happens that CleanTeQ has developed resins that can extract scandium and cobalt from waste water. So they potentially will have commercial sources of rare metals from the by-product waste of their water purification process !
HOW CLOSE IS THE WATER THING TO REALLY HAPPENING ? It is happening. CleanTeQ has signed a memorandum of understanding with a major Chinese municipality to implement their technology. There is a joint venture, 55% Chinese/45% CleanTeQ. Once the first one is up and working, China has a mind-boggling potential for water purification. For their teeming urban centers and for their mining and industrial locations, shall we say the potential is very large ?
CleanTeQ has 100% of rest of the world. CleanTeQ is closed-mouthed about other commercial sources, but they let on that they have been in contact with the likes of GE, Dow, and other big hitters. They state a pipeline target of $100 million by 2020; I predict they will do much better.
HOW CLOSE IS THE COBALT THING TO REALLY HAPPENING ? Very close. Battery useage is soaring and is the strategic target of many governments, corporations, and environmental groups. Batteries need cobalt.
HOW CLOSE IS THE SCANDIUM THING FROM HAPPENING ? This will take a while because the applications are high tech, with long lead times, and there is only one scandium mine in the world (CleanTeQ’s newly commissioned Syerston mine). CleanTeQ intends to develop the scandium market by being a reliable source of supply, and by driving the price down.
CleanTeQ will have viable margins with scandium prices up to half of current prices.
To give you an idea, the Russians made a few MIGs with scandium/aluminum alloys. They were faster, lighter, stronger. An addition of 0.5% scandium to aviation aluminum strengthens the frame, removes the need for riveting, reduces weight, and makes repairs easier. . The Russians dropped it because of costs; and Boeing and Airbus will not use it without a reliable source of supply. But there is about to be a reliable source of supply: CleanTeQ.
WHAT ABOUT IP PROTECTION ? I believe the IP and know-how moat is sufficient. CleanTeQ holds a perpetual license from a high-level Russian research organization that provided some of the foundation technology. I am not a patent lawyer and a lot of the know-how will be proprietary, not patented. CleanTeQ has been at this for over ten years, I think the barriers to entry are sufficient.
MANAGEMENT Totally a plus. Robert Friedland is the Co-Chairman and CEO, he has 20% of the company, great credibility and clout with the Chinese, and an unbelievable track record in mining. Sam Reggall is the other co-chairman. I know little about him, other than from my observations of him on an Australian investment show that aired last week. He was impressive.
MONEY AND FINANCES I don’t think there is anything at all to worry about. Friedland must be worth billions, the Chinese are in, and the concept has enormous potential.
Sources: as I mentioned, information is scant. My sources were the CleanTeQ website, presentations and and interviews with Friedland and Reggall, and the sketchy information on the brokerage sites. Nothing you cannot find on your own.
Long CleanTeQ
This is a discussion topic or guest posting submitted by a Stock Gumshoe reader. The content has not been edited or reviewed by Stock Gumshoe, and any opinions expressed are those of the author alone.
New Hendrixnuzzles Speculation in cobalt and scandium,
or:
“There’s that cool motorcycle again !”
**
WARNINGS/DISCLAIMERS: (1) this is a speculation, and (2) one needs to be persuaded of the bright future of cobalt and scandium to consider it, and (3) unless you believe in CleanTeQ’s Syerston project, you should not be interested; and (4) even if you think Syerston might be viable, you might want to pass, because (5) the speculation is a thinly traded microcap priced under a dime and might never amount to much.
**
Back in April on this thread, a reader supplied an article on an Australian explorer/developer named Platina Resources
($PGM on the Australian Exchange, $PTNUF on the US OTC).
Platina has a big chunk of real estate in Owendale, Australia, which is cheek-by-jowl to CleanTeq’s Syerston deposit. The market cap is really small, the stock is 8 or 9 cents.
In a lengthy discussion of Platina on April 16, I opined that Platina Resources was interesting, but that it was essentially the same bet as a speculation on Cleanteq; and that if I were to put money into Platina, it would be from a slice of my investment in CleanTeq.
Today I followed my stated strategy and sold a small portion of my CleanTeQ position, which is abnormally large, and went long $PTNUF Platina Resources.
**
There a few reasons I feel that a speculation on Platina Resources is now timely.
First, the CleanTeQ story seems to be headed towards a happy ending, even though we are in the very early stages. Everything on the ground is checking out, even if the market price of CleanTeQ has not zoomed into the stratosphere. I believe there will be big, impactful news on Cleanteq this year.
Second, Platina Resources has done a lot of work establishing the Owendale resource. The resource is essentially equivalent to the Syerston deposit, and is only 7 kilometers away.
Third, they seem to have a sound (albeit somewhat parasitical) strategy of piggy-backing on developments at CleanTeq. They will be speaking to the same aerospace, battery, and industrial interests as CleanTeQ, and they have a pragmatic two-pronged approach, in that they can pursue either cobalt or scandium, as the situation warrants.
Fourth, as an optionality minerals-in-the-ground speculation, with the deposit is equivalent to the Syerston deposit, it has validity both as a stand-alone project, and as an acquisition target. There are no ongoing mining operations expenses, most of the money spent is to prove and prepare the resource.
What I see is that CleanTeQ could double the size of their mineral reserves by acquiring the Owendale project. No additional capex would be needed in this case, since the Syerston facility is going to be built anyway, and the Owendale ore is nearby to Syerston. They will also acquire a potentially pesky competitor, for a cheap price.
**
On July 19, Platina put up a new investor presentation on their website. It slavishly compares Owendale to Syerston. Strictly from the angle of the deposit, it is a tie. Owendale even claims to be a little better, since there is a little platinum at Owendale in addition to the scandium and cobalt.
The presentation explains all the great reasons to be into cobalt, nickel, and scandium. It has a picture of the same Airbus motorcyle I noticed on the CleanTeQ website, in addition to exciting pictures of big planes and high-tech cars.
There are also references to imminent off-take agreements, and contact info fora Chinese-speaking executive is prominently featured. The website can be switched over to Chinese translations.
Of course, Platina does not have Robert Friedland, Pengxin Mining, HPX Exploration, and Sprott Inc. backing it.
So there are reasons why CleanTeQ is valued at $350 million, and Platina is valued at $35 million.
**
I am expecting to get my CleanTeQ shares back.
Frankly, I will be surprised if there is not an acquisition of Platina Resources by CleanTeq, with CleanTeQ shares being part of the compensation.
If you were in CleanTeQ’s position, what would you do ?
Platina Resources PDF investor presentation dated July 19
http://www.platinaresources.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/PGM-2.pdf
Thanks hn, looks very interesting and right next door to CleanTeQ….
Squirrel…yes, it is next door; and the existence and quality of the deposit has been proven. They just completed a Pre-feasability Study (PFS) on July 10, but nobody noticed.
A lot of times one is just rolling the dice and hoping that the real estate next door to a proven deposit has something good. In this case, we know a significant mineral deposit is there.
There are still lots of variables…we could be wrong about the demand and price upside of scandium and cobalt, there is no financing in place (although the required capex for Platina is under $100 million), there might be a more attractive deposit found somewhere else, and so on. If Syerston is a bust then Platina will be a bust also.
I did not mention that there is virtually no jurisdiction risk; that the ore is “friable”, meaning it is easily dug out without explosives blasting rock to bits; and that the mining method contemplated is low-cost open pit, without any fancy technology or metallurgy; and that the infrastructure and transport situation is very good. So for 8 or 9 cents and a low market cap, I like it.
Long (a lot) $CTEQF. Long (a little) $PTNUF.
After reading the above and doing some further dd I to have taken a position. Imo as a stand alone or take over, in the current climate looks promising.
$PTNUF…to be clear, it was difficult to bring myself to sell any of my Cleanteq position. The fact that I sold off a little $CTEQF to get a sliver of Platina is in no way an indiction of decreased bullishness on Cleanteq. If I were not wildly bullish on Cleanteq, I would not have speculated on Platina. It is the same bet with a higher potential return.
It was more a self-imposed limit on asset allocation…Cleanteq is about 20% of my liquid assets, and I felt to put additional capital into a bet on scandium and cobalt was going way overboard. Overboard, and swimming away from the boat. Too much.
**
I have three really oversized positions: Sandstorm, Ivanhoe, and Cleanteq.
All three have one major risk. With Sandstorm, it is the price of gold. With Ivanhoe, it is jurisdiction risk. With Cleanteq, it is the expected future pricing of scandium and cobalt. In some ways the Cleanteq investment is the safest.
HN-for information purposes, was there any reason you did not sell (temporarily) any of your Ivanhoe instead?
HN
Great article on Ivanhoe today on SA.
Analysis of Platreef mine.
Hedy…I just love Platreefs. The deposit is outrageous. It is as superior, or more so, in the PGM space as Kamoa/Kakula is in the copper space. There is no deposit or financing risk.
They have time-lapse videos of their monster head lift being installed over the mine shaft. What a project.
The only issue is the politics and government regulations in South Africa; and no matter what happens, Platreefs will survive because it can bear whatever burdens are imposed better than anyone else, because they will be much more profitable.
My Cleanteq position was even larger than Ivanhoe.
If and when I sell any Ivanhoe, the proceeds will be used for diversification in copper, zinc, and PGMs or will stay in cash.
It has taken a while for me to build up the Ivanhoe position, and copper and the stock are really showing signs of life. So I am really reluctant to reduce it now, even though the potential political issues with the DRC elections are only around the corner. If Ivan makes a move over $4, I might sell a little.
It was over $4.00 recently.
True. It’s very hard to control one’s emotions. Greed takes over.
https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/ann-quarterly-activities-report.3180563/page-2#.WYGcFYjyvcc
sorry wrong link …this is on hot copper…….
locky27
1,665 posts.
Date:
14/02/17
Time:
16:56:43
Post #:
22607384
locky27 said: ↑
Much appreciate it if you knowledgable permanent posters would give a opinion on how you think this problem could be overcome…
Then there’s Platina (ASX:pGM) next door with the Owendale deposit. They haven’t done nearly as much work as Scandium International and Clean TeQ. That’s also a similar deposit. Their only problem is that their neighbor, Robert Friedland’s Clean TeQ, has all the water rights tied up in that area.
Platina have a very poor 4.6k t cobalt measured and indicated.
as a scandium play it has potential but not with current mgmt.
Johnn…yes they are billing themselves primarily as a scandium play; and they have acknowledged that they need more cobalt, by making cobalt drill targets a high high priority.
Platina water rights: I would like to know the source of the assertion that Platina would be hindered on account of Cleanteq having “all the water rights tied up in the area”. But even if this is an issue, it would simply strengthen Cleanteq’s position in a negotiation.
Platina’s work on the Owendale project: It is true that Syerston is further progressed, study-wise, than Owendale. But the work on Owendale is now considerable, and less than 1 year behind the work at Syerston (per Platina). They do have a pre-feasibility study and reserve numbers based on assays, it is not like they have been sitting on their hands. And the condition of their project is reflected in the stock price and market cap…Syerston is valued at hundreds of millions, whereas Owendale is valued in the low tens of millions.
Hn it came from – https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/ann-investor-presentation.3553215/#.WYHf2cbTXMI
And was said to not quite be the case by a poster with good credentials. Another bloke there implyed that Platina’s water supply had been placed elsewhere away from the CleanTeQ area it seems.
Best to inquire of Platina management. I will send an email on the subject.
I think the water rights issue could be a nuisance, but my instincts are that it really could not permanently block a project there. And in the end, I do not believe another cobalt mill will be built on the Owendale property. It is an uneconomical outcome, when Syerston is already going to be there. If they can’t come to terms with Cleanteq, they can haul the ore out of there if they have to.
The attraction for me is strictly based on the inherent value of deposit and its proximity to Syerston.
$PTNUF $PGM…water rights issue…I zipped an email to them asking them about the water rights issue: how much of a problem it is for the Owendale project, and what their alternatives are, and what they are doing about it. We’ll see how they answer.
$PTNUF…Platina Resources…re: another cobalt plant on Owendale being
“…an uneconomical outcome, when Syerston is already going to be there” :
I meant to say it would be an “INEFFICIENT” outcome. It may be economically feasible for someone to build another plant, but it would be grossly inefficient from the overall standpoint.
$PTNUF Platina Resources,
re: Water rights…per Robert Mosig, CEO of Platina
Mr. Mosig answered promptly and courteously to my email.
SHORT ANSWER: he says that procurement of water is not a problem for the project.
LONG ANSWER, edited excerpts:
“…concerning [water] requirements for [the Owendale project]… our processing options [in the PFS are at a] town [near Owendale]… Accordingly, we have adequate supplies of water, power and labour to proceed…(…)
….I am happy to advise that water should not become a major issue in the advancement of our processing…”
He also explained that notwithstanding the PFS plan to process ore at the “nearby town”, they are also investigating on-site water and to date are encouraged by what they are finding.
I am satisfied concerning the issue. Long $PTNUF
$CTEQF Cold war cobalt
https://gallery.mailchimp.com/6b234a59bc4b0bc555986937a/files/62bd6650-85c5-4ab0-820f-26894625ac2d/20170802_Cold_war_cobalt_1_.pdf
This is a good article on the Clean TEQ process at the pilot plant in Perth.
$CTEQF long
I thought a small position in PTNUF was brilliant, and was surprised my order got totally filled today. Also nice that it closed up over 8% on my purchase price, on a % basis, I’m up more with PTNUF in one day then CTEQF in 8 months [for whatever thats worth]. But got like 20 times more CTEQF than PTNUF. The former is an investment and the latter a speculation. My thoughts are CTEQF partners or outright buys PTNUF at some point. But just bought a whole lot of metal in the ground for dirt cheap, and if they turn out to have significant cobalt, this will do fantastic.
possible correction, not sure if market is closed right now, I’m in Amsterdam right now, no idea what freaking time it is in US.
Renby…Australia closed when US is open and vice-versa. Platina has gone as low as 7 cents, it just moved his week but I think long-term anything under 10 cents is okay. I was filled at 8.2 cents. We see it the same way…it’s a double to the metal in the ground at Syerston. The market cap is only 30 million or so.
It is not going to be very liquid. I’ll just try to forget about it for a while and wait for a buy-out.
Don’t I know it, with such a large position in CTEQF I keep an eye on australlia to give me a heads up which way things are moving. I was also filled at 8.21. Totally fine with the entry price, from what I can see, it has hit 13 cents already. When I purchased my CTEQF at 62 cents, it was sitting at an all time high. Normally I don’t like to buy at all time highs, but CTEQF was a unique case, it was clear we were still WAY early. But as it turned out, after an initial run up, CTEQF could have been purchased for over 20% cheaper if we had waited. But zero regrets, my style when I see an opportunity is to jump on it, and that has worked well for me.
Sounds funny, but I’ve learned when I’m evaluating an investment, and the hairs on my arms stand up, jump baby jump, its what I call the tingle.
renby…so your arm hair stands up. What happens to me is I start to shake, become mildly incoherent, and cannot sleep until I get a long position. It doesn’t happen every time, but when it happens, I go long just so I can sleep at night.
Renby, I entered CLQ at 50 cents, watched it tank to 35 cents, and have added more at all kinds of prices; my average is 64 cents. So I am only in the black as of this week. Sixty to seventy cents is OK with me since the Chinese bought 16% of the company at that price.
On PTNUF our entries are nearly identical, I don’t think it’s a coincidence…there is likely a margin and commission in place, plus currency exchange, over the CLQ price that the OTC marketmaker must cover to do the transaction. It’s an irritation but I don’t see a better way unless we are large enough to make it worthwhile going onto the Australian exchange.
Yes, and liquidity also way better for CLQ, but other factors push me to OTC, despite your points I think at the end of the day, it’ll turn out to be basically the same.
Since I just purchased platina from an idea gleaned here, wanted to thank you for your contribution to discovering that opportunity.
renby…$PTNUF…hope it works. At the least, it’s hard to see a lot of downside.
But I think of the interview with Rick Rule, when he spoke about his famous killing in Paladin. He was very, very sure he was getting a bargain at (I think it was) 10 cents. He had to watch it go all the way to ONE CENT before it zoomed off and returned a billion percent on his initial investment and became the stuff of newsletter lore.
renby, I appreciate it, but thank me after it goes up 300% and you cash out well.
It will be great if it works out well, but the thanks is for the idea only, and holds regardless. I take the idea and make my own decisions, winner or loser, that is on me.
HN et.al.
I opened up a new issue of my Stansberry Research subscription called Commodity Supercycles.
And what pray tell was this months reco?
None other than IVN.
The article (12 pages long) confirms all the intel HN has been telling.
It also states that Friedland has secured $1B in capital to support the first stage of Platreef.
The analyst believes that IVN should sell its stake in Kipushi and use the proceeds on the other two projects.
They say its a buy up to C$6 per share.
They do not like buying on the OTC.
If they soon make a reco on CLQ….
Bob’s your uncle.
Thanks, Hedy…psychic income for me. A guy on Seeking Alpha expanded and re-wrote my article on Cleanteq. Note that I started the CLQ article as a”teaser solution in advance”.
I subscribe to a number of newsletters, but a recommendation has to fit within my own outlook,
and I always do my own due diligence. Good ideas can come from anywhere.
Hedy…Ivanhoe Mines…Friedland has discussed the possibility of selling Kipushi. But there is no hurry, and it is really a very desireable asset. It can be re-commissioned in less than two years at a low cost, the mine access tunnels have been excavated since the Belgian Congo era, and the zinc grade is twice as high as the next major high-grade deposit. It will be absurdly profitable. Friedland said that each ton of ore has $8,000 of metal in it.
I think the best strategy is to do very little until zinc prices go up, and then take on a big partner but retain a healthy interest. This will take a while.
Why sell out near the bottom of the commodity price cycle, and when DRC politics are a little uncertain ? They will be able to attract cheap capital for Platreefs and Kamoa/Kipushi in the meantime. Money is cheap now. But a zinc deposit like Kipushi is totally unique and cannot be replaced.
Kipushi will be going to CLQ in time as they have the tech to remove the $1.5b Co and Zn from the tailings dam. It even implies this in a 2014 article.
http://www.businessinfocus.com.au/index.php/2014/06/clean-teq/
Maybe that’s why Friedland sees CLQ outperforming IVN?
“is in the final stages of negotiation for a “very large water treatment plant somewhere in Asia, a $30 million project” due to be announced any day now”
whoa!!!!!!
very exciting article
Don’t get too excited now. It appears from the link that that article was written June, of 2014. That sounds like the already known Chinese partnership. It also states in the article that Clean TEQ has recently come to the attention of Robert Friedland that seems to support the date. I wouldn’t be surprised if we heard of something else shortly.
I wouldn’t be suprised if kipushi is still in the plan. Old article though
But with Zn and Co running hot who knows – would compliment Syerston nicely
Yes, gotta check the publish dates on these articles. I’ve bit on a few old ones myself.
Kipushi is being developed in an orderly manner but could be sold off, or more likely IMO JV’d, if the right partner comes along.
It is not an all-hands-on-deck-urgent front burner project like Kamoa/Kakula. They had to drain the old mine access of water and do a lot of other pre-operating stuff, and this is being done. But it is not an urgent priority. They can just mosey along waiting for zinc prices to go up, then people are going to be lined up with suitcases full of cash for the project.
Renby, Griffin et al…re: old article on CleanTeQ
The article on CleanteQ is excellent, the writer really “gets it”. Even though it is three years old it is well worth reading.
It gives us perspective and a measuring stick of the company’s accomplishments since then, compared to the outlook at the time of the article.
A few things stand out: The “imminent” Chinese deal cited in the article has happened. The potential for CLQ operations at Kipushi are still intact. Since the time of the article, several Cleanteq installations have been established; and the Syerston project has been far advanced , using the new technology as a primary extraction method.
The article outlines two epicenters for the company: South African mining, and Chinese water purification. Since that time, we have witnessed confirming action in the appointment of Multotec, a mining support company based in South Africa, as a distributor for CleanTeQ, and contracts and partnerships with Chinese state interests in water purification.
There is also good information that I have not seen in print before:
The quantification of the value of the contained minerals in the Kipushi tailings residues is very interesting…the article cites
a billion and a half dollars (at 2014 prices) and quotes the explicit strategy of CLQ going to the miners and just saying,in effect,
“You got the waste ore and we got the technology. Let’s go halves.”
Another interesting figure mentioned is the average large water plant project value…$20-30 million. It would only take a handful of such projects to make a Cleanteq order backlog in the hundreds of millions of doillars.
The small capitalization of Cleanteq is cited as a problem for the company when dealing with large counterparties. Since the time of the article, Cleanteq has quadrupled in market cap and launched a fully-formed water website with offices on several continents, and raised 80 million from a strategic Chinese partner, who will be active in procuring contracts and financing in China.
Comparing what CleanTeQ has accomplished since publication of the article, I have to say I am impressed. The article was excellent,
but CleanTeQ’s performance is even more so. CleanTeQ has confirmed or vindicated every single talking point in the article.
long CleanTeQ
Johnnn…great observation. One can go ga-ga thinking of all the contracts for CTEQF/CLQ for tailings and primary extraction that could come about just from Friedland’s own contacts from a lifetime of successful mining development… Oyu Tolghoi, Platreefs, Kipushi, Goviex, Zijin, and a dozen others. Tons of tailings with trace minerals, and millions of gallons of dammed up toxic water, everywhere there has been a major mine.
On the same subject, in the beginning I noted with heightened interest that it is a strategic objective of Cleanteq to enter into joint ventures and/or outright ownership in the largest of these installations. They will have ownership of the choicest installations.
Think about this. They could get the rights to old, exhausted mines for very low cost. These mines have millions of tons of discarded crushed waste ore that probably have large amounts of valuable stuff that were uneconomical to extract by old methods. With Clean i-X, these minerals that are lying in waste dumps in a manageable form already could be extracted.
One thinks of the King Leopold zinc mine adjacent to Kipushi, which mined zinc for 75 years or so and was the world’s largest and richest zinc mine. There is a pile of waste tailings the size of Vermont just lying there, and the mine is not operating.
This re-processing of waste ore and waste water from old mines is just one of the ways Cleanteq is going to…umm…CLEAN UP. Cleanteq is going to be a gold mine. Ooops, I mean a multi-element rare earth techno-miner. The McDonalds, Starbucks and Amazon of mining.
Although “gold mine” gets the idea across concisely.
Long CleanTeq
Mind bogling really, sometimes think we on here are the only ones seeing this apart from CleanTeQ of course who are fully aware if this and probably more.
secretsquirrel…so much for the idea that “public information” is known to all and is automatically reflected in the market price. The idea that markets accurately reflect all publicly known information is hogwash. Dissertations on this might have earned a few PhDs
but the idea is false.
Cleanteq is being valued the way a speculative cobalt/nickel project would be evaluated. So much the better for us.
Just posting this, not read it all in depth. Is current and has nice graphics.
Hope the link opens, I had to register, but it’s very simple and fully free.
Should You Follow This Trend For Clean TeQ Holdings Limited (ASX:CLQ)?
Chris Amalia August 2, 2017
Clean TeQ Holdings Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides pollution control solutions in Australia. CLQ’s insiders have invested more than 2 million shares in the large-cap stocks within the past three months. Generally, insiders buying more shares in their own firm sends a bullish signal. A two-decade research published in The MIT Press (1998) showed that stocks following insider buying outperformed the market by 4.5%. However, it may not be sufficient to base your investment decision merely on these signals. I’ve assessed two potential reasons behind the insiders’ latest motivation to buy more shares.
Over the past three months, more shares have been bought than sold by Clean TeQ Holdings’s’ insiders. In total, individual insiders own over 191 million shares in the business, which makes up around 33.11% of total shares outstanding. Latest buying activities involved the following insiders:
https://simplywall.st/ASX:CLQ/clean-teq-holdings
This mentions CleanTeQ quite a lot in comparison to the article which is about Ardea Resources in Australia.
At Clean Teq’s current share price, Syerston has an Implied Project Value of roughly ~A$400m on a fully-diluted basis. This compares to a ~A$65m Implied Project Value for the KNP. (For the sake of argument, we’ll ignore Lewis Ponds and assume that Ardea’s valuation is due solely to the KNP.)
Syerston certainly deserves a higher valuation for the following reasons: (1) the Robert Friedland premium, (2) the project’s 18-month head start, and (3) the fact that Syerston has publicly known project economics. There is a good argument to be made that Clean Teq shares themselves are well undervalued.
http://palisade-research.com/matt-geigers-featured-investment-ardea-resources-asx-arl-fraa91-otcmktsarrrf/
Good read thanks for posting. I put on my watch list.
In the article they mentioned “warrant over hang” which looked to be 1 warrant for every 3 shares. I’ve never seen that mentioned before. In this case it is not a problem because they can’t be exercised till 2020. Investapedia says there is no rule thumb and it is more a matter of dilution.
@griffin
Are you concerned that the “warrant over-hang” mentioned in the article cited by secretsquirrel above refers to Clean Teq or to Ardea Resources? As I read the article it seems pretty clearly to be in reference to Ardea. And I didn’t find the way it was dismissed as insignificant in the article very convincing.
Alan
The term as used in the article was referring to Ardea. It kinda of caught me by surprise since I hadn’t heard before. I think the author was actually referring to the ‘loyalty options’ to keep favored employees in place. The options weren’t exercisable till 2020 so weren’t going to be an immediate factor..
AlanS…”Warrant overhang”…in my opinion, to evaluate thenegative or dilutive impact of “warrant overhang”, one must look at the issue price, number, and time frame of the warrants in relation to the existing stock price.
For example, if the stock price is $1, and there are warrants issued at $2,
you can tolerate some dilution coming on in the future, because the warrants are only going to be exercised if the stock hits $2, which is a 100%
increase from where it is now.
On the other hand, if the stock is $1 and the warrants are numerous and at an exercise price of $1.10, it might give cause for hesitation, because you know there will be a lot of stock coming on not far from your entry price.
Warrant overhang and dilution…if the stock doubles from where you went long, you can stand a little dilution. If you enter at the price of the warrants, you may have a while to wait for appreciation.
Thanks HN, I guess you could also consider that as if the stock doubles before the warrants can be exercised the dilution won’t hurt, but then that’s conjecture.
$no ticker
Copper up to $2.91.
$no ticker….Copper price…get your telescope lens cleaned off. Friedland says you will need it in a few years to see the price of it. Seems like only yesterday it was $2.00.
Lens cleaned so I can see IVN $10++
Hedy and other Ivanhoe longs…let us consider for a moment the impact of copper price increases on Ivanhoe net earnings.
The Kamoa/Kakula mine will be built in multiples of 4 million tons of ore per year.
The first operation will probably be 8 MM tons per year. Eventually it will be 12 MM tons.
But for back-of-the-envelope calculation, let’s use 8 MM tons ore per year.
The grade of ore will be at least 6% copper. So if the process 8 MM tons of ore per year, that implies copper production of .06 x 8 million tons = .48 million tons of copper, or
480,000 tons of copper, or 960,000,000 pounds of copper per year. (That is regular English tons, metric tons are 10% higher.)
So every dollar increase in copper prices will therefore add nearly $1 billion dollars in net earnings, PER YEAR. Not bad by any measure, but especially attention-getting when one considers Ivanhoe’s existing market cap.
Copper and base metal spot prices…it is not headline material for the mass media, but the recent short-term price action in copper, zinc, lead, and nickel looks pretty bullish…especially for copper, which has increased from near $2 to near $3 since January.
If I had been following them more closely, I would have noticed it earlier…the move started in January, a year after the move off the bottom in gold and silver.
I noticed also a pretty bullish move in a lot of consumeable foodstuff commodities like corn & soybeans. And a farmland stock I have been watching took a big jump.
This was odd since the weekly news had a strong dollar, and should have sent commodities down; some of the more visible ones like gold & oil reacted, but not the base metals and food.
It is possible that this is signalling the onset of serious price inflation.
$PTNUF Platina Resources…re: cobalt reserves and grades
In June, Platina Resources released new drill results that showed a lot good cobalt intercepts. I do not how how their total cobalt asset reserves are affected by this, or how the drill results would translate to reserves, other than the results look good to my unprofessional eye. T
hey announced in summation that the grades intercepted were 0.90 %, which is good compared to Syerston’s global grades in their pro-formas of 0.10%. Platina has some pretty good drill diagrams in their announcement that show drill hole locations, color coded to show “max cobalt” and “max scandium” intercepts.
In their PFS they present themselves as a near surface, low capex scandium play with cobalt credits.
Regards PGM unsure how relevant this is to us here with a position?
I didn’t want to cut n paste the content but this information was being discussed on https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/show-us-the-munni-money-honey.3594510/#post-26370720
http://artemisresources.com.au/projects/projects-overview/
From the link above,
Munni Munni – Platinum and Platinum Group Elements
In August 2015 Artemis entered into an agreement with Platina Resources Limited to earn a 70% interest in the Munni Munni Platinum Group Elements Project (the “Munni Munni Project”).
The Munni Munni Project hosts the largest intrusion in the West Pilbara and hosts a JORC 2004 compliant Resource of 24 Mt @ 2.9 g/t Platinum Group Element (PGE) + gold (1.4Mt Inferred, 9.8Mt indicated and 12.4Mt Measured) (0.83Moz platinum. 1.14Moz palladium, 152Koz gold and 76Koz rhodium). Munni Munni is the largest as yet un-mined primary PGE Resource in Australia.
The Project is contiguous to Artemis tenements on all sides and continues the Company’s vision to consolidate a previously fragmented tenement holding region.
Artemis/Platina deal…I am just guessing but the thing smells the same as the Seabridge/Colorado deal. The smaller companies only have the resources to go full-out on one priority project, they cannot manage more than that; so when one of their projects is really going to go, they sell or option others that are promising but cannot be given proper attention.
Seabridge has KSM as their priority, so they optioned a good prospect to Colorado. Platina has Owendale as a priority, so they optioned Munni Munni to Artemis. At least that is what it looks like to me.
Thanks for clarification on that. Consensus seemed to be that the deal would be advantageous to Platina anyway, so that’s good.
$CTEQF CleanTeQ… $PTNUF Platina Resources…sleuthing around
Last week I introduced Platina Resources as a secondary speculation for those persuaded of the validity of scandium and cobalt, and more specifically for those who believe in the potential of Cleanteq and its 100% owned Syerston project.
Platina is a developer with a lot of real estate next to the Syerston project.
It has market cap less than $20 million, a stock price of 8.2 cents, and 8 million in cash. Theys are spending about $1 million per quarter in developing the resource. It is a development speculation based on scandium, with cobalt as a by-product credit.
A few call-outs were made about potential issues with Platina, namely water rights and cobalt reserves. Both issues are resolved to my satisfaction: water rights via a communication with the CEO of Platina,
the cobalt reserves by an examination of the recent drilling results.
Of course, all the investment issues and uncertainties of speculative micro-cap mining explorers remain present.
I reviewed the recent press releases and the Pre-feasibility study released by Platina. While my conviction on both stocks was increased, some tantalizing questions arose in a close reading of public news releases from both companies.
**
PLATINA DRILL RESULTS…I looked at a series of four releases from May 29 to June 26 whichj provided assays from the drilling program completed on May 9. The results look strong. The volume and grade of the scandium is expanded; some very good cobalt results came in; and there is optimism for continued resource expansion of the resource. But these results were not included in the PFS that was released July 10.
PLATINA PFS…the pre-feasibility study excludes any resource increases from the assays released May 29-June 26. The PFS is done as a scandium project with cobalt by-product credits, and is based on a specific area of the property which is only a fraction of the drilled area. Eyeballing the drill maps and boundaries of the different zones, it appears to me that the PFS accounts for about 50% of the identified deposit. Thus there is reason to believe that the resource is much greater than that contemplated in the PFS.
OPERATIONS…Platina is very confident on the feasibilty of operations and methods to be used in processing: they claim everything is hunky-dory in power, water, housing, transport, and ore processing. No problems.
METALLURGY…very high recoveries are cited. The deposit is in near-surface friable ore that does not need to be blasted.
FINANCING…they need it, obviously. Wonder how they will raise money.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS AND CONJECTURES BY HENDRIXNUZZLES
1. When discussing their PFS metallurgy results, they cite the name of the firm who did the metallurgy. But when describing their operations, processing, and extraction plans, they specifically withhold the names of the providers and locations. They refer to locations that are “Confidential at this point”, or sources as “preferred technology providers”.
Why so secret ?
2. In the process description for scandium extraction, they
mention the need for a high-pressure autoclave.
Hmm…autoclave…I’ve seen that term before… didn’t someone just buy two enormous titanium-lined autoclaves for a cobalt/scandium project in Australia?
How does it happen that after decades of adult life I have never heard of an autoclave, or even remember seeing the term in print, then suddenly I see the term twice in a matter of days, in separate discussions of two separate sAustralian mining projects that are 7 kilometers apart ?
***
3. Going over to the CleanTeQ website, I check out their PFS and the wonderful presentation on Syerston. Interesting…the Syerston PFS is presented as a cobalt/nickel project, with no value being given to the
scandium. The opposite of the Platina PFS, which is presented as a scandium project with nickel and cobalt as a by-product credits.
Why is one project presented as a scandium mine, and the other as a cobalt/nickel mine, when the deposit and geology are nearly identical ?
4. I see a footnote in the Cleanteq PFS financial pro-forma.
There is a footnote that mentions “royalties”.
Royalties to whom, and for what ?
**
Conjectures:
I conjecture that Cleanteq and Platina have had material conversations on co-operation to mutual benefit.
I conjecture that CleanTeQ is the “preferred technology provider”.
I conjecture that Platina will contract with Cleanteq to process scandium ore through one of the two autoclaves recently purchased by Cleanteq, with a royalty to CleanTeQ; and CleanTeQ will focus on the existing big market targets in nickel and cobalt until scandium demand materializes.
And I conjecture, as previously, that eventually CleanTeQ will acquire Platina Resources.
Long $CTEQF, long $PTNUF
Great research/analysis hn,
Clearly one autoclave each (hopefully), good sweeter for concluding a deal.
As you say Platina will need finance – but that’s one of RF’s specialities.
The CleanTeQ royalty, what could that be?
I do wonder which out of the 2 companies is currently undervalued, Platina is the bigger risk, but it does seem very cheap?
Long $CLQ
Long $PGM
Squirrel, Platina could contract with Cleanteq to run Platina ore through Cleanteq’s autoclave. Who pays what royalty depends on who makes the sale of scandium to a customer.
Both of these stocks are so small that US brokers will not permit them in retirement accounts. However I am beginning to look at Cleanteq as an investment, and a pretty darned safe one at that.
I keep looking for ways it could miss, and don’t see many other than(1) world-wide economic collapse, (2) a total fizzle of the electric battery movement, (3) World War 3. All these things are all possible.
There is also the possibility that a bigger, richer deposit might be found by someone else. But in that case the water purification and general extraction and remediation business would not be affected.
It is true that Platina Resources is much more of a speculation. It is more directly tied to the price of scandium,which may never go up. But again I feel relatively safe with it, because the deposit is proven and understated in the PFS, and the stock is very, very cheap…the company has a market cap of only $18 million, and they have $8 million in cash. The company has a visible floor of cash and metal in the ground.
IMO both companies have a potential that is many times the current valuation. But I am at a loss to quantify it. I have a much much larger position in CleanTeQ than I would ever consider putting into Platina.
Thanks for reply, yes I’d say that’s pretty much how I see the position with both companies.
My position in CleanTeQ is second to Ivanhoe although Colorado is closing in, in third. Platina being so cheap I might double up anyway as CleanTeQ being next door the dots will surely connect….
CleanTeQ as you say is now on the investment level, some serious players involved and have many directions to expand. Safety in such a wide diversification if anyone of them fall to the side. No brainer really.
Hi SecretSquirrel-
Are you keeping up with Nano One?
Thank YOU for alerting us of this equity.
Been long since the day you posted.
https://nanoone.ca/
Best2You – Ben
Chalk another one up for the great Gummunity! 🙂
Hi, no I’ve not been keeping up with Nano as got side tracked I guess. It was originally Hn that mentioned it and I followed on from there.
Great as looks like Nano is working out well, where do you see it going from here btw?
hn: You wrote, “Both of these stocks [$ClenTeQ & $Platina] are so small that US brokers will not permit them in retirement accounts.” I realize that this is secondary to the main point of of your post but for the record, my experience with Fidelity has been quite different. I have bought shares in both these stocks through Fidelity in both my and my wife’s Roth and Traditional IRA accounts for well over a year now and in other “dubious” companies for even longer. All I had to do was to verbally sign-off on a seemingly endless number of disclosures and releases. Took half an hour to wade through it all on the phone, but no great hassle in the end. (I do have Premium Account status and a 40-year+ history with Fidelity, so maybe that made a difference, that and the fact that they apparently decided some time back that I was bonkers.) You recently suggested I climb the escalation ladder regarding the status of my Mariana/Sand buy-out shares, and that was good advice—after 4-5 phone calls I finally got the registered. So you were right: as the ancient Chinese sage said, “Perseverance furthers.” (Unless perhaps Fidelity has changed their policy re: retirement accounts in the intervening years, having encountered a few other such seemingly crazy individuals. Oh yeah, there is yet another sign-off required if you want to buy 30,000+ shares of any foreign stock.
YMMV, but do let me and the rest of the Gummune know you if you manage to get past their lawyers. And again, many many thanks for helping with your great research and analysis and also helping to prove that we are not quite as crazy as some at Fidelity might think.
Alan long $CTEQF and $PTNUF
I hold $CLEQF in my wife’s IRA at Fidelity as an FYI. Planning to add $PTNUF in the near term. Thanks HN and everyone else who contributes on this thread
US brokers and small cap “penny stocks”…glad to hear you are permitted these purchases in your IRAs. I guess some of the brokers are worried about getting sued, others less so.
My IRA broker won’t even buy Ivanhoes Mines for me. So I do it elsewhere.
I also see the logic behind these two companies doing something synergistic that increases the value of both of them. Its a powerful cobalt/scandum play, if you believe in these two metals, which is supported by the facts surrounding both of them. It doesn’t take a lot of future vision to understand why they will both be money makers.
One of the very interesting things that I have noticed is as recently as 2015, cleanteq/syerston was a scandium project, with almost no mention of cobalt or nickel at all. Then after 2015, its almost like they were digging for gold and struck oil, these high grade nickel and cobalt findings just seemed to come out of nowhere. Perhaps Friedland and his magic secret pulsy-magneto photon ray analyzers were able to identify the true value of this property unbeknownst previously, and the story is just the same next door, these platina guys kind of lucked out that Friedland just discovered they got a whole lot more than they thought, and now they are in a position to let clean teq do all the heavy lifting to extract the value of what’s in there. Long CTEQF, long PTNUF
You could well be right renbycage, either way a jv of sorts or a CleanTeQ buyout would be advantageous to all share holders imo.
“Perhaps Friedland and his magic secret pulsy-magneto photon ray analyzers” good quote, sounds like out of one of those 50’s sifi films except that it’s now true due to ipulse’s technology c/o RF.
Renby…over time, one does see changes in marketing emphasis from the mines, depending on what resource they think has more appeal to the investment community and what discoveries they make on their property. It is only natural.
Until recently, Platina emphasized
the platinum; it is in their name; but now they are going in a different direction and platinum is an afterthought.
Correction: “…I conjecture that Platina will contract with Cleanteq to process scandium ore… with a royalty to PLATINA.”
Although a royalty could go either way on Platina-sourced ore, depending on who makes the sale.
In the article I posted today there were several things mentioned that brought CleanTEQ to mind; ” Without in any way diminishing the dangers of our resource dependency, I do want to note some
positive development s taking place – largely in the area of novel metals and minerals processing.
These are advances arising out of necessity – the need to efficiently extract minerals from low-grade
deposits. In some cases, this effort is driving process improvements that point to the ability to
extract minerals from unconventional sources, feedstocks if you will. I’m talking about historic mine
waste piles, eWaste, and potentially and perhaps most interesting, extracting rare metals from coal
deposits” and “In a study done with co-author Sandra Wirtz, we found that five “gateway” metals – Aluminum, Copper, Nickel, Tin and Zinc – provide our access to 25 of the more arcane “technology metals” discussed here.”
Though there was no mention of CleanTEQ and I don’t know that I would consider CleanTEQ novel what else is there. Environmental hot spots come to mind also I wonder how many of those could be cleaned up with ion beads. I want more CLQ too but just don’t have the funds left hopefully one of my other stocks will pop.
https://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=CB952A84-0E30-4953-B0BA-880138597D8A
$CTEQF long
Griffin I think you have caught the scent of possibilities. Coal and iron slag has been a source of cobalt for years as apparently it is sequestered by plants and bacteria, such as the iron fixing bacteria that laid down those huge beds of ore in Australia and Mesabi range in Minnesota.
Autoclaves have recently been mentioned,,, they are just huge steam pressure cookers such as are used in canning food commercially and in extraction industry. At room temperature chemical reaction doubles at roughly every 10 degree Kelvin, increase taking more and more degrees heat increase as temperature rises. Crushed ore or slag would yield a concentrated brine to make resin and electrolysis extraction more efficient. Old gold and silver mines left a lot of metal behind in the tailings that could be recovered that way.
The Earth is a closed system so nothing is ever truly used up,,, only scattered, so difficult to re-use at times. All the copper that has ever been used is still here, same for iron, zinc, etc as well as carbon, oxygen and so on and is re-concentrated by natural processes,,, although sometimes taking eons. All the coal and probably most of the oil was once CO2 in the atmosphere until captured by plant life and bacteria etc.
Mine waste and tailings metal extraction…at the Sprott conference, there was a company whose sole business was extracting copper from the copper waste at the Escondida copper mine.
Economical extraction of metals from waste ore will be an enormous opportunity.
$AMYZF Senate Testimony on Resource Security – July 18, 2017 by Dan McGroarty
Mr. Dan McGroarty is a Consultant for Texas Mineral Resources, Graphite One, American Manganese,
and Rio Tinto.
https://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=CB952A84-0E30-4953-B0BA-880138597D8A
This is a four page read and to the point.
$AMYZF long
xpost
Platina up date:
https://hotcopper.com.au/documentdownload?id=uOMxKKzFkiWRTLKhOROKAxjvSDYL4wy0yhLzv%2Bd%2B8rFiGug%3D
Release Date: 09/08/17 09:18
Summary: Significant increase to the Owendale Mineral Resource
Price Sensitive: Yes
Download Document 2.55MB
Hn does this add anything, thanks.
Also this was interesting….
https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/ann-quarterly-activities-report.3569100/#.WYpOyMbTXMI
Well I guess it all depends on the emerging size of the scandium market……..
but yes CLQ 450 million dollar market cap… they can go out and buy autoclaves. Its impressive, very impressive, but you have to pay 17.8 × as much to be a part of it. A lot of levity for PGM to move on the scandium cobalt in that deferential. Maybe scandium is like uranium. Maybe if you can make your plane/car/bus/train lighter by one third, then you really dont care all that much as a producer if you pay 2000 per kg or 3000 per kg?
CLQ and the fact they have gone for the autoclaves can be seen more as a positive in my mind..they think it is worth the while, and clearly see the potential there now. They might try to corner the market, but you can be damn sure they will promote the market. PGM were never going to be producing scandium before CLQ in my mind anyway…
It would actually be worse if CLQ didn’t bother with the scandium.. Because at the end of the day who among us really understand the opaque nature of that market? They have decided to increase their capex at this point in the market because they see it as worth the while. BULLISH!
We can sit next door, cheap as chips, do an easy bag or three, (easy) and all the while CLQ go from strength to strength. And while we tick off boxes without having to inject massive capital the nature of our ore body becomes apparent via the nature of CLQ’s. The difficulties associated, the mining and refining will all be revealed to PGM at no extra cost to PGM. Awesome.
Friedland will win again , but will rise faster, maybe get taken out.
Your opinion on this always appreciated Hn, always hope can be of some assistance in posting stuff I come across, fully loaded on CleanTeQ but might increase position on Platina Resources.
Hn appreciate your interpretation of the following thanks SS.
https://hotcopper.com.au/documentdownload?id=uOMxKKzFkiWRTLKhOROKAxjvSDYL4wy0yhLzv%2Bd%2B8rFiGug%3D
Release Date: 09/08/17 09:18
Summary: Significant increase to the Owendale Mineral Resource
Price Sensitive: Yes
Download Document 2.55MB
Also of note is https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/ann-quarterly-activities-report.3569100/#.WYpOyMbTXMI
Last post was Well I guess it all depends on the emerging size of the scandium market……..
but yes CLQ 450 million dollar market cap… they can go out and buy autoclaves. Its impressive, very impressive, but you have to pay 17.8 × as much to be a part of it. A lot of levity for PGM to move on the scandium cobalt in that deferential. Maybe scandium is like uranium. Maybe if you can make your plane/car/bus/train lighter by one third, then you really dont care all that much as a producer if you pay 2000 per kg or 3000 per kg?
CLQ and the fact they have gone for the autoclaves can be seen more as a positive in my mind..they think it is worth the while, and clearly see the potential there now. They might try to corner the market, but you can be damn sure they will promote the market. PGM were never going to be producing scandium before CLQ in my mind anyway…
It would actually be worse if CLQ didn’t bother with the scandium.. Because at the end of the day who among us really understand the opaque nature of that market? They have decided to increase their capex at this point in the market because they see it as worth the while. BULLISH!
We can sit next door, cheap as chips, do an easy bag or three, (easy) and all the while CLQ go from strength to strength. And while we tick off boxes without having to inject massive capital the nature of our ore body becomes apparent via the nature of CLQ’s. The difficulties associated, the mining and refining will all be revealed to PGM at no extra cost to PGM. Awesome.
Friedland will win again , but will rise faster, maybe get taken out.
Life is good Fiendish
Squirrel…I agree with the Hot Copper assessment, although I think he is making a classic mistake to use the multiple of the earnings.
Of course Platina or Cleanteq is valued at a high multiple to earnings…they don’t have any earnings, they are developers and their mines aren’t producing anything yet.
They have an undeveloped in-the-ground resource…Owendale is roughly equal to Syerston and can be purchased with drill results and a PFS…for $10 million (18 million mc less 8 million cash). I think that is cheap.
I think he is also a little optimistic or behind the curve on the scandium prices. Right now, $15oo per kg is a high and optimistic PFS benchmark…when the price hits $1000 per kg, useage will go way up.
Regardless, in all these scenarios, it is generally assumed that the price of aluminum will stay low. If aluminum prices increase substantially, higher scandium costs will be acceptable because the scan/alu alloys need less than one percent scandium to improve the metal characteristics.
One has to be prepared wait, potentially a long time, for scandium demand to go up, even though we may be pleasantly surprised. And we are speculating that the future price will be at levels that are profitable for Platina.
On the other hand, I think that the writer’s “easy” appreciation of one to three times the current price is way understating the potential. A jump to 16 cents could happen overnight, that would be a double. And the market cap would still be a microscopic $36 million.
All we need is one big offtake announcement by an Airbus or a Daimler-Benz, and Platina doesn’t even need to be the company that lands the contract…that would be Cleanteq, natch. And Cleanteq has stated plainly that there will be offtake agreements THIS YEAR.
$ECSIF eCobalt Provides Feasibility Update and Commences Pre-Construction Activities on the ICP
http://www.ecobalt.com/news/news-releases/ecobalt-provides-feasibility-update-and-commences-pre-construction-activities-on-the-icp
As this is an update there is not much detailed information the final release will be in September. The most significant thing I see are the Mill property has been purchased in southern Idaho and the infrastructure task required to facilitate construction of the mine have been fast tracked.
$ECSIF long
xpost
Scandium and cobalt…offtake agreements and first contracts…with Cleanteq annoucing the purchase of autoclaves, they are sending a very loud message to their potential customers that NOW IS THE TIME
to start getting in line for supplies of cobalt, nickel, and scandium oxides.
They are showing themselves to be dead serious and on-track to commercial production.
My guess is that Cleanteq will set their prices, and that Platina will be in the market at slightly lower prices, on scandium.
The reason I speculate thusly is that Cleanteq has the autocalves.
Put yourself in the position of a purchasing manager charged with securing cobalt or scandium oxide for Airbus or Daimler. You can pay a little more and deal with the vertically integrated, well-capitalized Producer A
(Cleanteq), or pay a little less to producer B (Platina), who must go to a third party to process the final product and is not as solid as Producer A.
You are going to go with Producer A. You might throw a little to Producer B, to average down and save a few bucks…but you are not going to put millions of dollars and your job on the line with Producer B at this stage.
You are not going to rely on Producer B.
It’s OK with Cleanteq to let a little lower priced volume go to Producer B.
They are expanding demand for scandium, and I suspect that they are getting a cut anyway, since I believe Producer B is likely sending their ore to Cleanteq’s autoclaves for processing.
Producer B can take lower margins, because they don’t have to make the capital expenditures for the plant and autoclaves.
I see CLQ monopolising the whole scandium market at $1000 – $1250 kg. They got everyone else by the balls! Processing it as a by product for a tiny add on is pure genius – it’s a free money printing machine.
Off the top of my head 173 TPA for Sc CleanTeq could do. I’m tired of looking this up. They can and will go under 1500/kg . They say and will corner the whole Sc. Market for years to come. There is NO real market for Sc now. They came up with 1500/kg to get end users into using Sc. And they will go lower if needed be. They will be the king of Sc until the market goes above 173TPA. Ok just to be sure here it is for TPA from old E-Mail…James
Part 7.2 of the attached PFS release details the info you are seeking. We can produce up to 170tpa of scandium oxide but we showed the economic impact of producing and selling only 50tpa because the market is currently very small. The additional capex was A$20M for a scandium recovery circuit. Extract below
Regards
Ben
Assuming an average scandium head grade of 53ppm (for more details please see ASX announcement dated 20 September 2016) and a processing recovery of 85%, the Project has the potential to produce up to 170tpa scandium oxide over years 3-20. The incremental up front capital cost of the scandium RIP recovery and purification circuit is A$20 million (assuming a recovery circuit capable of producing 50tpa of scandium oxide). Given the scandium is recovered as a by-product of nickel and cobalt production, the incremental cost of recovering scandium is relatively low.
The Upside Case assumes 50tpa of scandium oxide (Sc2O3) is extracted as a by-product and sold for US$1,500/kg Sc2O3. These production and pricing assumptions are consistent with those used for the dedicated scandium project assessed as part of the Scandium Feasibility Study (for full details see the ASX announcement dated 30 August 2016).
So I was 3 TPA off in my head. But CleanTEQ will clean up JMHO and thiers I think.
CLQ ie “RF will own scandium”. This is what Kaiser said.
They will monopolise the whole thing at $1000-$1200. At a $20m add on it I said essentially a money printing machine
CLQ ie “RF will own scandium”. This is what Kaiser said.
They will monopolise the whole thing at $1000-$1200. At a $20m add on it is essentially a money printing machine
rubberworm…I agree, the published PFS’s from both Cleanteq and Platina show operating costs under $600, they can sell for $1000-1200 quite easily.
And keep in mind, the Cleanteq PFS is for cobalt and nickel.
They don’t count scandium as a cash contributor to the PFS !
The scandium is a total plus as far as the Cleanteq pro-formas are concerned. They are pitching the existing cobalt and nickel markets, which are more investable at this stage.
This what Ben said last night regarding Sc….”Over the medium term we expect to see other producers of scandium come on line but i believe we will have a market leading position with the lowest cost of production.
Ben”
rubberworm…thanks for contacting Ben. No reason not to give credence to what he says. Kaiser is just using hyperbole…Cleanteq will not have a monopoly, but it looks like they will be dominant and they will probably be very, very influential in establishing prices.
Everyone is going to look at them before setting their own prices, and Cleanteq will be in the driver’s seat since they have the lowest costs.
It might be possible for CLQ to monopolizes if their initial price is low enough to keep most everyone else out of the market. That is essentially what Microsoft did with DOS and a little help from IBM.
Griffin, they may be the only primary scandium producer, but other mines can extract it as a secondary by-product. So Cleanteq may be powerful enough to set prices and the others will follow along.
The ones producing scandium as a by-product will have to take whatever prices they can get, as set by the primary producers.
$CLQ $CTEQF Cleanteq autoclave announcment…tell you the truth, at first I thought it was odd that Cleanteq made an announcement about the autoclaves.
“Hmm…what’s an autoclave, anyway ? So they are proud of themselves for saving millions at a mining equipment yard sale, and they want investors to know they are smart about spending money, and the timeline to production is accelerated…but of all things, is this really a newsworthy announcement from a company we don’t hear much from ? ”
The more I think about it, the more the logic of the announcement comes into view. And again I am impressed by the preparation and deep strategy of the company. The announcement was directed at people like Toshiba, GE, Airbus, and Daimler. The autoclave purchase says, in effect:
“ATTENTION EVERYBODY:
COBALT, SCANDIUM, AND NICKEL OXIDES FROM SYERSTON ARE GOING TO BE A REALITY, AND SOONER RATHER THAN LATER.”
OUR PROJECT IS GOING FORWARD, ON TIME OR AHEAD OF SCHEDULE, AND ON OR BELOW BUDGET.”
“PRODUCTION FROM SYERSTON IS GOING TO HAPPEN. WE ARE BUILDING THE PLANT. WE ARE SHIPPING TWO ENORMOUS MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR MIXMASTERS TO AUSTRALIA BY SUPERTANKER RIGHT NOW.
“COME ON IN AND TALK TO US IF YOU WANT A RELIABLE, WELL CAPITALIZED PRIMARY PRODUCER OF COBALT, NICKEL, OR SCANDIUM OXIDE. ”
***
Contrast this with, say, Platina, who is saying: “We hope to finance our project, and if you give us a multi-year contract we might be able to get financing based on your order.”
**
We have new due diligence questions to ask when evaluating suppliers: “Where is their autoclave ? Do they even have an autoclave ? Can they afford an autoclave? Show me the autoclave ! Cleanteq has got two of them !”
LONG CLEANTEQ. Small position in Platina resources.
Platina can just sit pretty, keep paying themselves for digging a few holes here and there, let Cleanteq do all the heavy lifting establishing a scandium market, and proving the value of what is almost a parallel deposit….. until they are happy with someones offer to pay them money/stock/royalty package, then they can move on with new level of enrichment.
renby, I would do the same if I were Platina. But in fairness, it looks like they have done more than sit on their hands.
They are not really foot-dragging, they have done a lot of work to advance the resource. Last quarter, they spent over $1 MM on their drilling, assays to the tune of 1 meter lengths, and a PFS. Plus, they have lined up all the necessary facilities for production. They have checked the boxes and done the work. They say they are only 10 months behind Syerston on a development basis, even if they are light years behind in technology, contacts, and access to capital.
Platina is building the value of the project, even though the stock price and market cap are pitiful.
Having said all this, I do not believe a new mining facility will be built at Owendale. They are puffing up and acting like they could go it alone, and raising the prospective value of the project. As they very well should.
But in the end, why bother to go through to construction ? It will be more efficient and profitable to just add the Owendale resource to the Syerston operation. Tens of millions of savings will be divvied up among the particpants…on the just the expense of titanium-lined autoclaves !
For a pittance, Cleanteq eliminates a competitor and adds decades of mine life. It would be very surprising to me if Friedland and Mosig have not worked on this. The only thing that could screw it up is that Mosig is too greedy, Friedland is too cheap, or someone comes in from left field and overpays for Platina. And Friedland is not cheap. He is decisive, fair, and strategic. He is in the best position to give Mosig the best offer, and Mosig would be crazy to turn it down, since CleanTeQ stock is likely to be part of the deal.
Long a lot Cleanteq. A little long Platina.
Exactly, Platina do deals as we know. Doing a deal with CleanTeQ makes good sense. I’m guessing of course but RF must be looking at it through his telescope….
Long CLQ
Long PTM
Squirrel…we can look at the unloading of the Munni Munni project to Artemis as part of a plan to focus on scandium.
In my really wacky imaginations, I see HPX and Friedland geologists flying over to the Platina deposit in Greenland to size it up. Note that it was the Munni-Munni deposit that was optioned…the really
prospective one in Greenland is still owned by Platina. And who has the money, guts and expertise to develop a mining project in Greenland ? A certain
entrepreneur comes to mind.
Long Cleanteq, long Platina
What I would wonder, is if cleanteq bought platina, would it increase their annual cobalt production, or, alternatively, extend the life of the mine. Increasing production would be great, extending life maybe not, as who can predict the demand for cobalt that far into the future, with alternatives to cobalt being worked on right now. Also, they probably have all the scandium they can sell for the next decade or two already, would nailing down more be over-kill?
Friedland gets deep value by thinking long-term.
He can affect mine life by increasing production; having deep reserves enables him to increase production when conditions are favorable, without exhausting the mine.
With Platina an independent, they have no control over Owendale production, and Owendale scandium could flood the market and depress Syerston profitability.
It may be overkill to acquire Platina from the supply side…but he is absorbing a potential competitor at a very favorable price.
It is a logical and compelling proposition to me,
though maybe Friedland and Mosig see it entirely differently.
I admit that acquisition of Platina by Cleanteq is purely conjectural. But it makes a lot of sense.
Cobalt production is very cyclic as new metal is mainly a by=product of copper and nickel mining, if outside of African/Congo supply.
It is not a scarce metal but about half the world supply is possibly from slavery/child labor in Congo,,. Australia has about a sixth,China, Russia,Cuba,Canada jointly another sixth and rest of world, the final sixth.
Us gets most of supply from recycling scrap,,, old jet engines etc and buys the rest from Canada and other sources.
CTeq can profit by boosting production when copper mining slows,,, as it does periodically.
I know your right HN. The cobalt market is driving near term producers that have the finances to expedite their path to production. eCobalt $ECSIF is doing the same.
Griffin, with turmoil in the DRC, ECSIF could be a big winner.
Thanks for your persistence in calling it out. No position.
Do they have an autoclave ?
I don’t know that they do or don’t. They have purchased equipment for the and have it in storage, but I haven’t seen an inventory. Also don’t know if that includes the mill. Since the Feasibility Study is due next month I’d better send a email to IR and find out what long lead time equipment hasn’t been ordered. I’ll let you know.
$ECSIF HN, here is the reply from eCobalt;
Hi Larry,
Below is an excerpt from the “Project Overview” page of our website that describes the equipment we have in Salmon ready to go up the hill:
” Approximately $16M worth of long lead time equipment was previously purchased and is stored in warehouse and staging areas outside of the town of Salmon, ready for transportation to the mill site. This equipment represents all major components of the mill and concentrator, and includes the ball mill, flotation cells, hoppers, grizzlies, etc.”
btw I replied and asked about replacing cobalt in the lithium battery and recent dip in the spot price of cobalt. It would be nice to get their view.
$ECSIF long
Here’s the reply I got back from the IR at eCobat;
Hi Larry,
I believe a replacement for cobalt or lithium ion batteries will eventually be found but I think it’ll be decades, not years. With regard to the cobalt spot price, it’s not surprising there would be some small pullback’s along the way considering how fast the commodity has risen in value.
Regards,
Monty
Travis the double post below can be deleted having computer problems
I didn’t remember what eCobalt had posted about equipment they had bought so I posted IR to find out. They posted back a quote of what I forgot.
Hi Larry,
Below is an excerpt from the “Project Overview” page of our website that describes the equipment we have in Salmon ready to go up the hill:
” Approximately $16M worth of long lead time equipment was previously purchased and is stored in warehouse and staging areas outside of the town of Salmon, ready for transportation to the mill site. This equipment represents all major components of the mill and concentrator, and includes the ball mill, flotation cells, hoppers, grizzlies, etc.”
$ECSIF long
I have been following this excellent thread but have not seen any reference in the past few days to the significant fall in value of IVPAF stock. Could it be that it’s being sold as tensions and violence are increasing in the DRC and we are getting closer to September?
Yes that and NK, everything else is the same,
Hi eagerbeaver…sure, definite possibility and a likely one. A while back we discussed the upcoming DRC election (September) on the thread I authored “Gold and Silver and Hard Assets Summer 2017.” I also suggest predecessor threads I have moderated, which you can find by clicking on the avatar symbol to the left, with the authors name on it.
The idea was specifically that Ivan might suffer, and we discussed copper stocks without DRC-related jurisdictional risk. A number of writers made specific suggestions; in the end, I just reduced my Ivanhoe and bought some SCCO, since they should benefit from the rise in copper and have no African jurisdiction risk. If things get really bad in the DRC, cobalt prices should zoom although Ivanhoe will suffer.
Even with todays drop, Ivanhoe is still at the 200 day MA line. So the correction so far is not extreme, although it could become so with further declines.
**
This thread was created for discussion of scandium, cobalt, and Cleanteq Holdings, and has evolved to include mining technology and rare metals.
It is a subset of hard assets that may not interest everyone, so I felt that it is best to segregate sicussion of them. The boundaries get blurry sometimes.
Thank you HN. Yes, after posting I realized that I might be on the wrong thread and I discovered the discussion on your other one. If full civil war does break out in DRC, I wonder what Ivanhoe would be worth valued on Platreefs alone. Also, we should hedge with alternative and safer sources of cobalt in the event that it rockets in value.
Long CTEQF, IVPAF, and SAND.
eager…IMO good cobalt hedges are Cleanteq and PTNUF !
Platreefs is in South Africa, there are recent political problems there too…but we have a firm accounting valuation on Platreefs of $3 billion because the Japanese paid
$300 million for 10% of it a few years back. So Ivanhoe is bargain city already.
Long IVPAF, CTEQF, PTNUF
$IVPAF – Eagerbeaver, here is one reference I found quickly by using ‘Comment Search’ on this thread for ‘September’ you may also try DRC, political, Congo etc. to find more. Best2You – Ben Thank YOU HendrexNuzzles! Have a great weekend ALL! $IVPAF, watching closely to re-enter after the DRC calms down:
https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2017/02/microblog-scandium-cobalt-and-water-purification-cleanteq-holdings/comment-page-5/#comment-4940468
$IVPAF and the DRC…the amount and severity of the turmoil is unpredictable. If we want a bargain with big returns we may have to scrunch up our nerve, grit our teeth, and be prepared to move in when things look the bleakest.
The worst would be an outright civil war. I imagine in that case cobalt will go bonkers; copper and zinc may not do much because there are plenty of world-wide alternatives. But cobalt should go nuts.
At the same time we could see Ivanhoe dumped to absurdly low levels.
It could be a major, major bargain. In my opinion, the current market cap
is substantially less than the value of the Platreefs deposit alone. Further price decreases would put the company at fire sale prices.
Our problem, as usual, is that we will want to pick a bottom, we will fail, and we may suffer short-term losses below our clever entry prices before peace breaks out. But long term, it is a bargain now, and will be more of a bargain when and if things get worse.
HN
If you believe what you wrote, your best strategy would be to dump what you own and average down in increments.
You could also buy some calls to cover a quick upside move.
There are also some bio techs on fire sale if you follow Dr. Relentless.
Hedy…I do believe what I wrote, sold over 1/3 of my Ivan. But peace could break out and copper could go to 4.50 in a week.
HN- Understand but the odds are long against that happening. Also calls would cover that short term jump.
Lundin Africa Oil AOIFF fell more than usual in the past few days. Hmm…I wonder if it’s related to the proximity of Kenya to the DRC.
#Kenya – At least eleven dead as post-election unrest erupts in Kenya https://twitter.com/ReutersWorld/status/896499057220354049
The unrest in Kenya looks bad, and what is happening now in the DRC isn’t great either.
Thank you for your help SoGiAm. Yes, I’ve been searching.
MHO this has hurt CleanTeQ SP and even more so this week…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-11/asx-wall-street-sharemarket-dollar-wrap/8796592
Rubberworm…could be. If the world goes to hell, our resource stocks are not the only things that are going to be trashed. And some of them might even go up.
Hard assets, baby.
HN & others, has anyone considered or paid 2K for the new Casey Predictable Profits Formula? It seems to be targeted to developers & explorers that Myron, HN & other gummies discus on these threads. Would really like to have the information, but DO NOT really want to pay the 2K to subscribe.
$2000 ? You can buy a lot of CTEQF, ERDCF, PTNUF or CLASF with that.
mhardin…I guarantee, you can find many multi-baggers on the current threads here at SG.You will get some of these names from the newsletters, after you have seen them here. Click on the avatar at the left and check out the Gold, Silver and Hard Assets Summer 2017 thread and its predecessors.
It is here in black and white. Show me a newsletter that recommended Ivanhoe at 80 cents, or Mariana Resources at 40 cents, Cleanteq at 50 cents, or Colorado Resources at 20cents, before they were discussed here. And many other readers are contributing great ideas also.
The obvious conclusion is that the newsletters are getting their ideas from threads here!
eager…ideas have to come from somewhere. Newsletters need to have pretty good reasons before recommending to subscribers. It is a more rigorous process than speculating on a blog.
Some of them may. We present opinions and positions, not recommendations and advice.
We have more license to speculate and can go with less certain evidence.
A newsletter editor still has to vet and research the idea.
The stock they recommended to watch is Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. SBB.TO; SGSVF OTC. This was a free gift if you listened to their presentation. It was not a recommendation to purchase at the present time.