Is a “World-Class Mine Well Outside the ISIS Conflict” Setting a Company up to skyrocket 2,448%?
by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | November 13, 2015 11:35 pm
Friday File look at a Boron teaser from Keith Kohl
This is premium content. To view this article (and to have full access to the rest of our articles), sign up. Already a member? Log in.
Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/oil-gas-trader/is-a-world-class-mine-well-outside-the-isis-conflict-setting-a-company-up-to-skyrocket-2448/
Copyright ©2024 Stock Gumshoe unless otherwise noted.
I don’t think the Balkans in southern Europe are out of danger if Paris, France, gets hit by ISIS. You’ld have to give me an alternative Boron source in the U.S. or Canada to get me interested. Sorry.
Ah, Erin, I owned it a few years ago but eventually became disenchanted with management. As goes the old adage: mines are made and not discovered. (or something like that). Though back then, before ISIS, the theme was the superior quality of Erin’s boron if I recall correctly and the obligatory stories of a boron supply shortfall in the immediate future. I will take a look again, but it is extremely difficult to finance any project nowadays, and borrowing money seems to put on an added strain.
Quite a balanced assessment from Travis as usual. Makes a nice story for the likes of Keith Kohl or Nick Hodge who are usually at least a year ahead of a good buy point. I had run across ERIN before in my research but I agree with Travis that barring any key trigger point such as a supply deficit due to war etc. this is a highly speculative stock that needs some further advancement and proof of available financing before it would be a reasonable investment. At this point it would be a huge gamble with potentially big rewards, but not necessarily a risk/reward profile that would entice me, but that could change quite rapidly given the right circumstances. At this point the only compelling argument is Angel Publishings need to sell more subscriptions.
I really wouldnt worry too much about Turkey being affected by a little crISIS. Turkey is probably our best hope of crushing them. They have the second biggest army in NATO, and theyre not exactly touchy feely about ‘interviewing’ suspects. They’ll shoot first and ask questions later.
And with 300yrs of other supply….I dont think Ill be buying anytime soon.
I have some background in boron processing, and know the boron market quite well. I have followed Erin Ventures over the last few years with interest. While Turkey has the largest boron resource in the world, US Borax in California (Rio Tinto) is the worlds largest boron mine. US Borax is blessed with having mainly borax (a sodium borate) as the boron containing ore mineral, whether the main mineral at both Erin and Turkey is colemanite (a calcium borate). Unfortunately for the latter processing of a colemanite ore is much more complex and costly than a borax ore. The Oct 2014 PEA by Erin , while indicating a significant NPV of a few hundred million dollars, needs to be viewed in light of a complete absence of metallurgical test work to confirm that the ore can be upgraded from about 27% to a minimum of 35% B2O3 and that some of their ore can be processed into boric acid. It is not comforting to see that the mining section has been well (over?) documented and the processing plant has been left over to some generic guess work. Rather than drilling more holes it is time that Erin spends some funding on confirming the processing route. That’s why I would not recommend this stock at this time.
Thanks Willem, always excellent to hear a different perspective from someone who actually understands the details of an industry.
will What is your comment on this report and the statement:
We also noted that with increasingly stringent environmental regulation and a continuing emphasis on glass production, what would be particularly useful would be a supplier that can produce arsenic-free colemanite concentrates, since arsenic is an increasing issue for current producers, and colemanite, which is a calcium borate, is much preferred to the more commonly available sodium borates for the production of E-glass types of fiberglass. It is perhaps worth noting that ETi has a virtual monopoly on the current global production of colemanite, as the US Borax Mine overwhelmingly produces sodium borates.
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/535e7e2de4b088f0b623c597/t/55b67001e4b02f0c44ea1a54/1438019585435/Stormcrow-EV-Initiation+Report-27July15-Final-v3.pdf
Can’t answer about the details, perhaps Willem can, but just wanted to note something about that report. I don’t know much about Storm Crow, which is the producer of that report, so it might be worthwhile information — but Erin is also Storm Crow’s customer (they provide “Financial and Business Support Services”) and Storm Crow employees own shares of Erin, so if you’re putting a lot of weight on that assessment you might want some confirmation from elsewhere. It doesn’t appear to be fluff like you’d see from most pump and dump folks, the report sounds reasonable, but I could be heavily biased on some details without me knowing.
Thanks Travis. I have found nothing online to support the possible future preference for colemanite to avoid arsenic but its a special search to find online so Willem or others might have insight.
While I agree that arsenic could be an issue in colemanite, the ERIN PEA report indicates that “The behaviour of As has not been reported in the testwork conducted to date; therefore the levels and deportment of As should be investigated in any future beneficiation testwork programmes.” And that was exactly the point I made in my previous note: Erin should carry out some test work to determine the quality of the ore and upgradability.
Could Rio Tinto be interested? They have property nearby in Albania. http://www.erinventures.com/media/nws_d.php?id=74
In theory, and you never know — but they have 50 years of reserves in California, too. The world is awash in commodity projects that now appear “cheap” based on metrics from the last decade, but I have no idea how eager the big guys will be to “double down” on new development projects in this environment.
Travis. It is my understanding that the US Borax operations are to some extent being affected by increased mining stripping ratio’s. While Erin Ventures and Rio’s Jadar deposit will have to be mined by underground methods, US Borax is still an Open Pit operation (albeit with a rather high stripping ratio). While US Borax may have 50 years of reserves they may not all be economic reserves. There are also “reserves” in tailings ponds, generated over a very long period of time. With the right technology those ponds might be able to be economically reprocessed.
Arcticchar: Rio’s Jadar project is located in Serbia: http://www.riotinto.com/diamondsandminerals/jadar-4643.aspx
Jadar is a very interesting lithium borate project and they are planning to produce both lithium and borates.
thanks Willem
Superman’s nemesis Kryptonite in Jadar – would jadrite be found in the Erin property – seems not as they only mention boron.
Rio Tinto could be the safer investment with Erin having wildcard potential
‘only place in the world where the mineral can be found. Incidentally, jadarite has the same chemical composition as the fictional kryptonite of Superman fame.’
Indeed kryptonite is the “same” as jadarite. I am pretty sure that Erin does not have any Jadarite. I am not so sure that Rio is the better investment for boron. They have been developing the Jadar project now for many years and while Superman needed kryptonite, Rio may need a Superman the crack the jadarite mineral and its associated processing technology! Rather than just hard rock mining one should also look into brine/salar projects with boron that could have very attractive costs.
found this one but it look a long ways ahead to develop
http://trugroup.com/uyuni-lithium.shtml