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I've been an investor for almost 15 years and my impression after watching the video presentation is that these guys are still flailing. I had a half-million shares at about a half-dollar average cost for a long time, but have dumped 90% over the past two years, as one deadline after another has been missed. I''m keeping a thousand shares just for the amusement value, but my overall impression is that I may not live long enough to see this dream become a mine. Good luck to the stalwart few who are more patient than I am.
Christopher Ecclestone on Scandium:
Not sure that this has been posted already: a brief interview on Proactive Investors on scandium. What I find particularly interesting is the suspiciously dismissive assessment of the Elk Creek Project, including no mention of the fact that it's primarily a niobium project. As I remember, Ecclestone is an investor in Scandium International, whose project is pretty much stuck in neutral, despite a much lower capital cost than Elk Creek. Their problems include land issues, lack of offtakes, a deteriorating stock price, well-funded nearby competition, etc. The fact that he dismisses Niocorp with a wave of the hand, given that it has met many milestones Scandium International has not, makes me suspicious that he--and likely other potential Australian producers--are plenty worried about southeast Nebraska becoming the go-to source for scandium.
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/913069/world-s-first-primary-scandium-mine-to--unlock-the-metal-s-massive-potential--913069.html
In the interests of full-disclosure, I have a modest position in Scandium International--much more modest now given the 80% decline in the stock price since 2017--and a smaller one in Clean Teq. (What can I say? I like scandium.)
It's unlikely that you can "lose every penny" on your Niocorp investment. Unlike exploration plays, where a resource is unknown and its value highly speculative, this particular project has known resources worth billions of dollars. Even if Niocorp isn't able to pull this off, it's likely that some other mining company will pick it up, if only for the option value. My guess is that half to two-thirds could be shaved off the current price, but the project is far too advanced to be abandoned.
That being said, I think the prospects of that happening are pretty slim, barring a worldwide economic meltdown. As the saying goes in the mining business "The best projects will always get built." That's generally true, as long as you add the word "eventually" to the sentence. I got into this investment at around a dime, back when it was still Quantum, and before Mark Smith. The fact that he eventually joined (and after I had made a bucketful of money on Molycorp) was a bonus. I have confidence in him, not because Molycorp was a huge success, but because of how he resurrected a California Superfund site into a functional mine.
I confess that this project is a couple years behind the schedule I originally anticipated so long ago, but I think the reward will be worth the wait. Mining projects rarely yield a quick return, unless you happen to get lucky during the exploration stage, but they can sometimes handsomely reward those with patience.
Well, that was a quick recovery...
As an investor since Quantum days, and in initially at a dime, it was pretty depressing to see $25k evaporate in a few hours yesterday. It seems, however, that the support of the faithful remains. I have had about two dozen junior mining investments over the last ten years, and this remains the one for which I have the highest hopes, along with Ivanhoe Mines. The case is pretty compelling. It's got so many advantages relative to most junior miners (location, regulatory environment, resource, staff, etc.), it amazes me somewhat that it doesn't have a line of people ready to throw money at it, especially when the Fed is giving money away nearly for free. I'm willing to hang on a while longer, but that ten-year anniversary is approaching...
I finally filled my long-standing sub-$0.40 buy order, and rounded up my holdings to a nice number where the math is easy to do in my head. To me, nothing has changed since I first bought Quantum Rare Earth Development stock in 2011 for around a dime. This is a trove of valuable metals too good to pass up. A mining complex will get built, eventually, by somebody. I have my complaints about some of the decisions made, and the occasionally excessive optimism, but overall I would say the team has done a great job of moving the project forward slowly but steadily with limited resources. There's a possibility that a recession could throw a monkey wrench in the timeline, and kick the project down the road a year or more, but I'm in no hurry, despite the pain of watching my account balance decline in six-figure numbers. I plan to live long enough to see steady dividends from the project, or the creation of a new vertically-integrated specialty metals company with multiple high-value assets.
There is a company in Beatrice, about 45 driving miles due west of the Elk Creek site, that specializes in the extraction of rare earth salts from fly ash and mine tailings. Isn't that convenient?
http://rareearthsalts.com/
It's not that the deposits of rare earths are small. The Elk Creek carbonatite is about 7 km in diameter. The issue is that the market for rare earths in controlled by China, both at the mine and the processing ends, and is far riskier than the niobium/scandium/titanium market. If you look at the maps, the Niocorp project is a tiny dot of scandium and niobium enriched ore in the middle of a huge deposit of metals. I've always considered this project to be a niobium/scandium play with an option on rare earths, should the market opportunity arise. It would be far easier to "mine" rare earths from either a pregnant process liquor or from enriched tailings than from a new mine elsewhere. They will be mining this deposit for a century or more. It would not surprise me at all if other metals were extracted at some point.
I'm pretty serene as to the downside risk of this stock, which I've been in now for 7+ years (at purchase prices ranging from less than a dime to one dollar.) Given the value of the resource (economic and strategic), level of engineering work completed, and state of permitting, it's hard to argue that it's not grossly undervalued at the current price. Somebody is going to exploit this resource, even if it's not the current team. Whoever it is, I expect that I will get an nice return for my patience.
I would of course like to see Mark and crew pull this off, and build a specialty metals and advanced alloys mega-company. The reality, during my lifetime at least, will likely be somewhere between the two extremes. When the stock surpasses $2.50, I start counting the profits in seven figures. I'm not losing sleep at the prospect that won't happen...eventually.
I've always been of the opinion that Niocorp was an Niobium/Titanium/Scandium mine with an option for other minerals and rare earths. There is a company in nearby Beatrice developing a process for extracting rare earths from mine tailings that I'm sure is keeping an eye on Niocorp. Once the mine is in production for the main products, it's entirely possible that other processing circuits could be added for secondary products, should the economics pan out. Carbonatites such as Elk Creek are essentially a smorgasbord of valuable elements. The uniqueness of Elk Creek's mineralogy are what originally got me, a childhood rock hound, interested in the project--at a $0.10 "I'd like to own a piece of that" level. When Mark Smith joined, my memories of tripling my money on Molycorp induced me to make a much more serious investment.
The meteoric rise--and equally meteoric fall--was engineered by forces outside of Mark Smith's control: China's total domination of the world's REE supply. Mark was gone long before Molycorp went under. He deserves great credit for turning a shut-down mine and Superfund site into a producing mine, even if it wasn't successful in the long run. I made about a 350% return on my Molycorp investment and have no complaints about his management of the company.
I feel your pain. I had a standing limit order in for 15,000 shares and missed it by $0.007. Ouch!
That's entirely possible, and I would consider it an early Christmas present that would allow me to finally round up to a half-million shares.
It's not impossible that Niocorp could crash and burn, but it's not very likely either. The worst case scenario is that we will have to part with a large chunk of equity in order to JV with a deep-pocketed mining company. The BOD could direct Mark to shop out the company at any time. The fact that they have not done so is an indication of their confidence that this particular project will eventually pay off bigly (that's Queen's for "big league"). It make take two years, or it may take five, but I expect that one way or another Niocorp in going to make patient investors a lot of money. It may not be as much money as some people fantasize about (e.g. $30), but it should be more than respectable for anyone who has purchased prudently, and average down when the opportunity arises.
You just hit the nail on the head. All the wailing and garment-rending on this board is over a trivial volume of stock held by day-traders. Those of us who hold hundreds of thousands of shares (and I believe there are many of us) don't scare so easily and aren't likely to sell before this project is at least approaching initial commercial operation. When good news comes (final approval of the water line, a scandium off-take, a strategic investment by a major, etc.) there will be a scramble for shares and all the current agita will be replaced by equally irrational euphoria. In the meantime, this board will alternate between being informative and merely amusing.
p.s. If anybody thinks they can call the bottom, please private message me, as I would love to make one big purchase instead of buying another 5k shares at every downward drop of a penny...
I just want to say thank you to all the nervous Nellies out there who've allowed me to pick up 28,000 shares this week at an average price of less than 35 cents U.S. I've been buying this stock at prices ranging from nine-and-a-half cents to a dollar and have as yet seen nothing that has shaken my confidence there will eventually be a producing mine in Elk Creek.
I have researched and traded a variety of exploration, project development, and mining companies over the past seven years and have found very few with the merits of this one:
-Massive, rare, and high-value ore body
-Existing nearby infrastructure
-Top-notch management
-Great location in a country that's not frozen most of the year, that has stable mining and corporate regulations, and isn't run by a whack-job (well, two out of three ain't bad..)
None of those things have changed in the long and painful slide of the stock price. If you don't believe in the project's long-term prospects, by all means sell. I'm still looking to buy another 50k cheap shares and I thank you in advance. If you do believe in the ultimate success of the project, which could take many forms (sale, JV, or go-it-alone), my recommendation is to relax--and stop reading stock blogs.
Normally the charge for my pearls of wisdom is 2 cents, but for fellow board members, it's free.
In a couple of years, a full ten years after some of us bought our first Quantum stock for less than a dime, a bunch of us are going to meet up in Nebraska for a ribbon cutting or similar event, and laugh about some of the stupid sh_t and silly and/or nefarious people we encountered on this board. I'll bring the cigars.
The price always goes up when I put in an order for 25k shares below the current ask. I was hoping some nitwits would be spooked by yesterday's decline and give me a gift. No such luck this time apparently.
Apparently it's time for one of my rare posts to restate the obvious:
1) If you make investment decisions based on what you read in anonymous blog posts you deserve to lose your money.
2) The stock value of mining project companies generally follows a particular pattern. If you are great (or lucky) at market timing and looking for a short-term gain, get in, get out, and don't look back. If that's not your investment style, be prepared to ride out the lows before you reach the promised land.
3) If you are terribly disappointed in a stock's performance, sell and move on. Don't just whine about it. Find a better investment. There are others who will buy your cheap shares.
4) Unlike many mining project companies, Niocorp has high-quality management with a track record of success. Look around and compare.
4) This project is not your average medium-grade base metal project. The Elk Creek Carbonatite is a geological unicorn, a massive deposit of rare elements sitting under Nebraska cornfields. Somebody will likely still be pulling rare metals out of the ground there when most of us are dead. I think owning a piece of that is likely to be a pretty good long-term investment. Call me crazy.
p.s. "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient" - Warren Buffett.
Time will prove one of us right. I won't lose any sleep if I have to wait another 5-7 years for a 10-20x return.
To all you nervous nellies out there: Please sell! Pretty, pretty please. Nothing would make me happier than a dip in the stock price right now, at least before my $.40 buy order expires. I've been wanting to round up to the nearest 100k shares for some time. It make doing math in my head much easier.
p.s. I watched an interview this week with the a well-healed gentleman who lives up the road in Omaha. He said he's got $100 billion in cash at the moment, and he's looking to invest 80% of it. He thinks most stocks are too expensive however. I wonder...
I think there is a happy medium between unrelenting cheerleading and non-stop negativism. The former is no real help to anyone and he latter begs the question "why are you here?" I've owned this stock since the Quantum days and have purchased nearly a half-million shares at prices ranging from less than a dime to a dollar (U.S.) I'm currently underwater but not losing a minute of sleep over it.
Is it possible that Niocorp has been overly-optimistic about scandium prices? In the near-term maybe not, in the long-term, possibly. That's the nature of supply and demand. If people can sell something for a lot of money, more of it will be dug up.
Is it possible that Niocorp won't be able to finance the project? Very possibly, but if so, some bigger fish will likely come along for a big chunk of equity. We won't be happy, but that's how the mining industry usually works.
Is it possible that an "unknown unknown" could derail he project? Yes, but I could also get hit by a bus crossing the street tomorrow. The project not going forward is very unlikely given the current regime in both the state and in Washington. There is plenty of money around for good projects.
Is it possible that I won't make a 10-15x return on he stock? Definitely, but I'd say a 3-5x return is a virtual certainty eventually, even if the company gets sold. The current stock value is simply too far below what the project is worth at its current state of maturity.
The bottom line? If you aren't patient, and have a low tolerance for risk, switch to an index fund or a basket of stocks. (I would stay away from Novo Resources though.) Nobody should have their life savings or the bulk of their retirement fund in any mining project at any state of development or production, unless they are a company founder and can't sell any stock. Given the potential of the Elk Creek carbonatite to produce a wide range of valuable elements (our project is the hole in a massive mineralized donut), I have no doubt the project will eventually be developed by somebody and at the very worst, I'll only make a small profit. That shouldn't be the end of the world for any prudent investor.
I can think of one U.S. company that's almost wholly dependent on Chinese suppliers: Wal-Mart. Never underestimate the long-term stupidity motivated by short-term greed.
My skepticism regarding potential Chinese scandium supply stems from simple math. At the concentrations of scandium found thus far (in the few hundred ppm range), the Chinese would have to process a huge amount of material to get several hundreds of tons per year. Even if it's a byproduct of some other mined material, that is a whole lot of dirt to move.
The prospect that China will be produce "several hundred tons" in the foreseeable future seems highly unlikely, although as the market matures over the next decade or two, it's likely that total worldwide production will easily be on that scale, given its benefits as an alloying component in aluminum. His statement seems like a combination of wishful thinking and marketing hyperbole.
I wasn't making a judgement as to the value of this particular endorsement, just explaining the mechanics of how it's done, and how irrelevant it is who wrote the verbiage. I have no doubt this project is known and a priority both to the governor's office and to the Feds, for a long list of reasons. That's why I've been buying since the stock was a dime, and don't fret much about the short-term stock price. One way or another, this mine will get built by somebody. The only question to me is whether my ROI is 3x or 25x.
This may be a misguided attempt to revive a horse already beaten to death, but I've had to wait until Friday (too cheap to subscribe) so I can't resist a response regarding the big "who wrote the letter" debate. As one who has been on both sides of similar issues, here's exactly how the sequence of events usually transpires:
1. Constituent calls/writes representative (the governor is this case) and asks for an endorsement/letter of recommendation/positive comment, etc. on some project/proposal/regulatory action, etc.
2. Representative's surrogate, usually a staffer with some level of knowledge or involvement with the issue at hand, says "Sure, we'd be glad to. Can you draft something up?" This practice is not evidence of some kind of conspiracy, merely a concession to the reality that the government is inadequately staffed to research and/or write letters or even legislation on most technical matters. The text of many laws is actually written by third parties such as "advocacy organizations" (i.e., lobbyists) or ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council)
3. A letter is drafted by the constituent, and the draft is passed back-and-forth until both parties are happy, and the representative's surrogate feels he/she can draft a cover memo that will address any questions the signer, in this case the governor, might have. That cover memo may be topped with an even shorter signing memo, that condenses with issue into a sentence or two. (The rule is that the higher up you go, the shorter the cover or signing memo has to be.)
4. The letter and cover/signing memo go into the chief-of-staff's in-box. He or she reads the letter and cover memo, and in the course of the representatives daily signing session (which is pretty much a daily duty), gives the signer a one or two sentence explanation of what he or she is signing, for each of the half- to several dozen documents in the pile. It would be a rare exception if a governor asked a question, or even read the full cover memo. That's what the staff is for. Even though the governor may not have read the cover memo, it serves as a valuable history of "why" should someone later ask the question.
5. So, I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but the endorsement of a government representative to a Federal regulatory body is a very routine operation at nearly all levels of elected government. It's SOP to request a letter from your congressional representatives even for relatively modest grant proposals. If you've got some state-level mojo, you ask your governor to send one to the President. Although he's not likely to read it, it lets the target audience know that you are at least able to get your representative's attention, with the potential for future action, if necessary.
Absolutely, if you can get the owners of more than 50% of the shares to agree with you.
I'm torn. I can't decide if I'm more disappointed that the BFS didn't show an IRR of 30%+ at a $2k scandium price or because the stock didn't drop below 50 cents US so I buy some cheap shares.
This is a solid, but not an "OMG" project. I'm curious to see the rationalization of the scandium price, given that they have had ample time to work on it, and it now provides the bulk of the revenue. Elk Creek now appears to be a scandium project with a secondary niobium product and some titanium credits.
I'm staying in, as I still think it's likely that the project will eventually get funded and be at least a $5-$6(US) stock.
I was able to purchase 25k shares of NIOBF at the ask the end of last week with no problems. although it was in three chunks.
It's all about probability. I think there is an 85-95% chance the mine will be financed and built and a 90%+ chance that the stock will hit $5-7 dollars if they can do so at a reasonable level of dilution. The chances are less that it will hit the $12-15 range, but significant enough so that I would not sell my entire stake at $7. At the lower range, I'll be comfortably retired in the Sonoma Valley, if at the higher range, I'll be retiring to Tuscany...
Some prior analysis (by Mark Smith, Photonics Guy, and others) gives me a guy feeling that if they can get this mine financed and built, it's almost definitely a $6-$8 (US) stock, and possibly a $10-15 stock eventually. If Brazil gets hit by an asteroid, it's a $25-30 stock, but I'm not holding my breath. I do expect a 10-15 return on the current price once it's in production however.
I do think there is going to be a scandium "rush" as the advantages of Al-Sc alloys become obvious to everyone, which may cause the stock to spike, but the effect will be temporary. There's going to be a lot more scandium around eventually, and I expect the price to decline over time.
Also, people may think I'm nuts, but I've always Niocorp also had a potential rare earth option (it did start out as a rare earth project), if that market goes crazy. There's an outfit not far away (Beatrice) that has technology for extracting rare earths from mine tailings. I wonder where they could get some of those....
By any measure, Niocorp owns the rights to some very useful rock.
The question is whether it's going to be good news, or truly spectacular news. I would not be surprised if $100-200 million has been shaved off the CAPEX and the NPV increased by +20%
There is far too much breast-beating over the Mackie deal. In the big picture, the amount of money involved is pretty trivial. I think it was a case of an investor wanting to get a little more skin in the game prior to an expected pop and an early-stage company wanting to keep that investor happy. Also, more money in the bank is almost always a good thing.
Keep your powder dry gentlemen.
1) There's a very low probability that Mark will be making any great reveal in his presentation next week. A keynote address is not the place for big announcements. He will most likely be a cheerleader for the technology metals industry as a whole.
2) As a result of Item 1 above, very short-sighted people (i.e., day-traders living in their mom's basement) will likely be selling their 1000-share stakes in Niocorp.
3) At the typically low volumes at which NB trades, the stock price will go down.
4) People like me, who believe that Niocorp is one of the best prospects in the current market for generating a 15-25x return over the next 3-5 years, will buy those shares, with relish.
5) If a similar fire sale had not also been going on with Ivanhoe Mines earlier this week, I would already own another 50k shares of NIOBF. Now I have to decide what to sell in order to pick up some sub-50-cent (U.S.) shares next week. Damn. Honestly, I hope nitwits drive the price below 40 cents. If they do, I'll likely be endowing a professorship in my name at Stanford within five years. I thank the sellers in advance.
As do I, although I sold off half my stake some time back to pick up more Niocorp shares. I think that the eventual wider availability of scandium, likely at less than $2k/kg IMHO, is going to transform the aluminum industry. In twenty years, 3D printed parts made from scandium/aluminum allows will be everywhere.
SCY announced receiving their Development Consent from the New South Wales Minister of Planning last November 10th and had hoped to receive the mining license, the last required approval, shortly thereafter.
It seems to me that releasing info from the FS to select investors or institutions before the public release date would constitute a crime under U.S. securities laws, so I think it's highly unlikely to happen. This is not Mark or Jim's first rodeo by any means--and don't forget that Mark is a lawyer.
People have been patiently watching this project for 6+ years. I would imagine that any institutional investor that follows the industrial metals market would be aware of it, if not actually following it, if only for the novelty of billions in potential mineral wealth hiding under Nebraska cornfields. The kind of money that matters (sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurance companies, etc.) is not going to be competing with day traders over a few pennies per share. They will have investment targets that may take months or years to reach, once they decide that the company is a solid long-term holding. I don't imagine that happening until after somebody makes a large investment in building the mine, as was the case with Pretium in September of 2015 when it received a $540 million construction financing commitment from Orion and Blackstone, some 15 months after their updated FS. That project has had a very aggressive construction timeline (although in far less hospitable surroundings than SE Nebraska) and is just now in the commissioning stage. I'll repeat that: updated FS in June 2014, first production May or June, 2017 (if all goes well.)
The bottom line? Don't try to predict the short term future based on conjecture about what unknown others might do. If you think NB is a solid investment, buy some if you can. I've bet a few hundred thousand dollars that whoever owns this project will eventually build it, produce a product at a profit and provide a better than S&P 500 index-fund-level return to the investors. I even think there is a modest chance that it will make some of the people on this board into multi-millionaires. If you buy in at anything less than a buck or two, I am pretty sure you will be very happy in 3-5 years.
p.s. In the words of Robert Friedland, Ivanhoe chairman and an insanely successful mining entrepreneur, "The best projects always get built." There are many of us who have voted with our wallets that this project is one of them.
A suggestion for Investor Relations:
The various conspiracy theories promulgated and overall garment-rending associated with disappointments regarding stock price and the seemingly interminable wait for the FS have made this board of late more pain than pleasure to read. In my experience. the ups and downs of the stock price and what is perceived (possibly with thin evidence) as a repeatedly delayed feasibility study are both pretty typical for the mining industry. Junior mining companies generally have low trading volumes, which means that small buys and sells disproportionately move the price. Feasibility studies are produced by outside consultants and are mainly subject to their workload and schedule, rather than that of the clients. If you can't handle price volatility or waiting around for five or more years until a project moves from PEA to construction, you should probably be looking for other kinds of investments.
There are those of us who have been invested in Niocorp (or Quantum Rare Earths) for five years or more years because we believe it has a very high probability of being among the small fraction of mining projects that actually become working mines. That eventually will likely result in a 10-20x return on the current stock price, and a 60-120x return for those of us who got in at less than a dime. For that kind of return, I am willing to wait quite a long time for this project and others. If just one out of ten of those investments generates that kind of return, I'm still way ahead of where I would be had I invested in an S&P index fund.
One thing that one of those investments, Ivanhoe Mines, does far better than Niocorp is keeping stockholders abreast of progress on a regularly scheduled basis. Ivanhoe updates their investor presentation every month, even if there is only minor progress (they have three mines undergoing additional resource definition and initial construction or rehabilitation.) I think it's a huge benefit to get regularly scheduled updates, even if there is only a single altered slide of minor milestones to report. I spent many years as an R&D engineer providing a weekly update to my direct superior, a task that generally took less than an hour. I don't think it's unduly burdensome for Niocorp to do the same on a monthly basis. Jim, are you listening?
That's true, I did get very lucky on MCP. Having bought in at around $23 and selling near the peak at $72 over in about six months. I was initially attracted to the stock because I was impressed that anyone (Mark) could bring a former Superfund site back to the status of a producing mine, in California no less. MCP's peak value was never justified by its ridiculous stock price, which I believe Mark stated at the time, but they still deserve credit for remediating that site and bringing it back into production in a state generally unfriendly to extractive industries.
As we say here in California, everybody just needs to chillax a wee bit. The delays in the arrival of the FS are causing some people on this board to go a little nuts. Here's my two cents worth:
1) If you are a long-term investor, the addition of a few weeks or months are not going to make much of a difference. Given what happened with PEA1, wouldn't you rather that the FS is absolutely right, rather than just soon?
2) If you are hoping for a quick return on this stock, you are delusional. The volume is simply not there to make this a liquid investment and 10k worth of stock can significantly move the SP. If you are not willing to stick around for at least three years, your money will be better off elsewhere. Don't expect the SP to double or triple overnight once the FS is released. If all goes well, there should be a small "bump" followed by a long steady climb, including a few more bumps (up and down) as new milestones are met. The stock won't really reach its true value until the first earnings report validates the business model, and that's a long time from now.
3) Watching mining projects move from discovery to production is worse than watching paint dry. Most of us on this board were likely children (or not yet born) when the Elk Creek Carbonatite was discovered. Since Mark came on board, this project has moved very fast compared to other mining projects. That's a testament to the merits of the project and the people involved. Truly, this project is in the top 1 or 2% of projects in North America.
4) Mark Smith, no amateur at this business, has considerable skin in the game. One has to assume that he knows more than any person on this board---and he seems pretty damn confident. He likely knows a lot more than he's telling.
5) I first bought into Quantum because I found the prospect of a REE deposit in Nebraska to be interesting and was looking for somewhere to put my 300+% return on Molycorp stock. I got even more interested when Mark was hired and the project pivoted towards niobium, titanium, and in particular scandium (I also hold Scandium International stock). I've bought shares at prices starting at less than $.10 and ranging up to $1.00 (U.S.) I have done so because I fully expect that by the time I'm ready to retire, there is greater than an even chance that Niocorp will be ten times its current price--and about a 20% chance of being >$10 within 2-3 years of initial commercial production. Every $2.50 increase in price will net me an additional $1 million in profit. I figure that's worth a little more patience.