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Lind does not count on the warrants for their profit.
The Lind debt has an interest rate of 10% (prepaid for two years). Niocorp also paid closing fees to Lind for each tranche.
When Lind converts these for shares (that they clearly sell immediately) they convert at a 15% discount to the five day price average.
So in summary, Lind converts at an APR 10% higher than what they loaned at a stock price 15% less than the rest of the market. The only way they lose money is if the share price drops ~25% between the time they convert and the time they sell. They make plenty of money on these terms without the warrants.
https://www.juniorminingnetwork.com/junior-miner-news/press-releases/391-tsx/nb/14712-niocorp-developments-ltd-completes-convertible-security-funding-agreement-for-institutional-investment-of-up-to-us-10-5-million.html
PM me on Friday after market close during "happy hour". I'll share Jim's M.O. with you.
Q2 quarterly activities report:
https://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/CLQ/02126660.pdf
They are still maintaining their commitment for a final investment decision this year. Also some vague details on partnering interest under the previously announced process led by Macquarie.
Seems like good news and the pps has definitely improved since that announcement. Too bad cobalt prices still suck.
I go there once in a while but haven’t for a while. Has anyone provided a source for this?
I’m not familiar with “blood battery” but the issues with DRC supplied Cobalt are well known and one of many reasons why battery and automobile manufacturers are looking for more ethical sources of these minerals.
Good interview with Riggall. Claims they are accepting final offers for a partner and has a dozen parties interested. Potential Europe and North American interest would certainly drive the price up. Also says it should be finalized by the end of the year.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-08/u-s-europe-getting-more-anxious-about-ev-battery-supply-crunch
Well gollee gee wiz! Have you told management? They only have the titanium valued at .40/lb!
A better question is why would a company with a market cap under $6 million be publicly traded in the first place? Regulatory filings, board of directors salaries, public news releases, and Investor relations expenses are extraordinarily high as a percentage of value.
You aren’t the only one here, but please don’t stoop to their level. Anyone that thinks anonymous message board posters are swaying the share price of companies with market caps over one hundred million dollars probably shouldn’t be invested in the first place. That type of concern is clearly ludicrous. CLQ was up 20% last night on a 3% cobalt increase.
It should be added that Mountain Pass was back in production in February of 2012. From what I have read a low estimate of the cost to reopen was $500MM while the high side was $800MM, which aligns with the cash obtained through equity until that point. The debt appears to have been primarily for the intent of vertical integration via Neo.
Sorry for your loss. I enjoyed conversing with him.
You are exactly right. It was actually left in the corporate presentation for some time after the fact, but I cannot locate a link at the moment and the presentation has since been updated. Groundfreezing was specifically mentioned as one of the options considered. The pipeline was chosen as the most cost effective and environmentally friendly option during the feasibility study.
Hence I think you may understand the frustration that the permit issue was divulged in the senate testimony as the first notice to shareholders.
I took your previous advice and put in a buy order for EXMGF. Didn't fill today but I'll try again tomorrow.
Yes that's more or less my interpretation. The gas line is the first part of the construction schedule. Shaft sinking didn't start until year two in the original schedule and was only estimated to take 8 months. Obviously the ground freezing would move this up in the schedule, but it doesn't have the same level of importance as some of the other phases in the early stages.
No, I defended the "crickets" that are about the only regular visitors to this board. Niocorp isn't exactly discussed much in Australia.
My comments on the share price are further down in the post.
I don't interpret the requirements to include the actual construction equipment that is temporary in nature. It seems to me the primary air contaminate is dust in this case. Backup generators would certainly apply as well under the "fuel combustion equipment", but I have a hard time believing it applies to a back hoe or bucket truck temporarily on site for utilities. If this was the case wouldn't they have to figure this into the calculations and engineering?
CTEQF has a pretty low following in NA. Most of the trading is done on the ASX and vibrant discussion is on an Aussie board.
The company provides quarterly updates to investors. Here's the most recent:
https://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/CLQ/02067575.pdf
Detailed engineering is underway and they expect to finalize an EPC contract soon. A financing decision is expected in the first half of this year. You can see the current schedule of major events in the previous update: https://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/CLQ/02037486.pdf
Share price sure isn't much to brag about lately. Finalizing offtakes would help, but I suspect those are getting wrapped into the financing discussions.
I think the share price is unfairly attached to cobalt spot prices which have little to do with the long term outlook of the mine. Co spiked about a year ago and I think CTEQF was overvalued at the time. The opposite is true at the moment.
They also have over $100MM AUD on hand and have had numerous insiders buys over the last few months. The outlook for Cobalt and Nickel is very good as much of the world transitions to electric vehicles. Many forecasters predict that these will commodities will be very under supplied at current production levels. If the scandium market takes off as some project, CLQ will be well positioned to capitalize on it as well.
There's your cliff notes.
Spin it however you want. "The fee agreement was never completed by the Corps, and the Corps did not complete any additional work on the 408 permit." i.e. there were issues.
Again, this is testimony to the US Senate. I'm quite confident Sims wouldn't have put it in the written testimony if the issues in working with the Corp were not indeed a partial driver.
The rest of your post is conjecture at this point. It remains to be seen what the effect is to the economics, as well as what the decision making process was behind the scenes (which technically hasn't been completed).
And I said it was "one of the reasons". You claimed without reservation that they did not switch due to the federal permitting. Jim clearly stated that the Corp quit working on the permit. If that's not an "issue" then I'm not sure what is.
It's you're prerogative to feel unbothered by the fact that this information was withheld from investors. I felt it should have been disclosed as at the time these federal permits were considered a major hurdle. Debunk away.
"The Army Corp's 408 program office stopped work on the 408 permit for the project in February 2018 on the
basis that a fee agreement with the company was needed to continue working. The fee agreement was never
produced by the Corps, and the Corps did not complete any additional work on the 408 permit. This was a
partial driver in the Company's decision to remove from the project's design those features of the project that
triggered the 408 permit."
From the Senate Testimony as I mentioned. Bottom of page 12.
https://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=D288D38C-5223-4BAC-9626-E4A9C4CFF982
You did mention me by name, but I will accept this as a truce.
Personally, I don't see the value in reading charts on a thinly traded stock of this nature, but then again chart reading does not interest me even in the areas where I acknowledge value in the task. Hence I ignore those posts.
It is quite clear there is a lot of frustration and concern among shareholders. I think Mark Smith has made numerous off-hand comments during the last two investor meetings that has fueled enthusiasm and later disappointment with retail investors, which I assume makes up most of this board (myself included).
My singular request of the management team is to put out a quarterly letter to shareholders. This is rather simple and I have noticed that most other junior miners do exactly this, both North American and Australian companies.
It doesn't have to be long. A simple this is what was completed the last three months and here is what we are working on the next three months. Investors shouldn't have to go a full year without hearing from the CEO of the company. Nebraskan and I debated yesterday as to whether or not Zachry has started detailed engineering. I see no reason why Mark couldn't put simple things like this in a letter. Scott Honan mentioned they had gone over a schedule with the various engineering firms involved in putting together the PSD schedule. This is information that I believe should be shared with investors. Finding out that issues with the federal permitting process was one of the reasons they switched to the ground freezing method via the Senate testimony instead of hearing it direct from Mark was disgraceful. I could go on, but I think you get the point.
I do not buy the argument that they are keeping everything as quiet as possible so that the "environmentalists" don't screw up the project. First of all, it does the company no good when posters refer to those who care about the environment (that do come from both sides of the aisle) "nut jobs", "tree huggers", or "wackos". I'm not saying you've done this but these terms have been thrown around numerous times. That's a great way to rile someone up that may have previously been indifferent.
One thing that I think this entire board agrees on is that the local and state support for this project is tremendous. It also appears that federal support is not required. The proposed mine is not going in an area of significance, and it will not disturb native habitat. Any native habitat in that area has long been disturbed by cropland and Nebraska farmers tendency to continue to till on a yearly basis. If I recall from my drive by the area, there is also some pasture land with non-native grasses that may be taken over by the mine. The point is, a mine very well may be LESS intrusive to the environment than current agricultural practice.
The above ground portion is relatively small, all things considered. I would actually encourage the company to plant many of the outlying areas of the mine into native grasses. There are many benefits to doing so, not the least of which are some bonus points with the conservationists of the area. I'm sure the Johnson County Conservation District would love to assist in this. I'm also confident UNL and nearby seed producer Stock Seed Farms would be valuable resources. This would be a tiny gesture on Niocorp's that would go a long ways in proving their commitment to a green project and further preventing disruption to the schedule.
Back on point, if you agree that the company could afford to provide more information to shareholders via a quarterly update, I encourage you to respectfully voice your frustration and make this request to Jim.
False claim? Merely giving credit where it's due for his research. I took this permit for granted before reading some of his posts a while back. Still don't think it's much to be concerned about, but it is time consuming and with the level of engineering it requires I am skeptical that major financing would come before the permit.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=145472387
And yes, I showed that I know far more about the towns of Eastern Nebraska than I do Eastern Australia and owned the mistake. Can we get back to a legitimate Niocorp discussion now?
Ignoring the fact that the share price hasn’t moved out of the range it’s been trading in for years since the Sc offtake was announced, I would prefer if you quit putting words in my mouth and making false claims about my prior statements. You did the same thing recently to Advocate.
Instead of putting others on the spot, why don’t you tell us why you still believe financing is right around the corner? Nebraskan did quite a bit of valuable research on the air permit that he shared as to why financing may take a little longer. I agree with this, but I’d love to be wrong. I’m not here to compete on who gets the most points for being right. There is no “hard or fast rules” on these, remember? I don’t think anyone disputes that as these are private negotiations. For all we know somebody steps up and loans a billion dollars tomorrow without even taking advantage of the German UFK program. Doesn’t seem likely, though.
Because they are the likely recipients of commissions via the private placements?
Why do you always want to make things personal? Your link does not dispute anything I posted, but does provide additional information. Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse are common debt facilitators. This does not mean they directly provided financing. It simply means they provided the means to allow private investors the opportunity to purchase the bonds and equity involved in Molycorp’s Neo acquisition. Two of those investors appear to be Apollo and Oaktree. There are certainly many others that may or may not be disclosed in the bankruptcy filings.
In layman’s terms it goes like this:
Morgan Stanley to their most wealthy clients that have an interest in the sector: Hey you want bonds in this new REE miner? Here’s our prospectus.
Private investors: Sure, sign me up.
Public disclosure: Morgan Stanley closes debt facility.
Recap: As you have shown, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse we’re involved in helping secure the debt portion of the Neo acquisition, but apparently not the initial funding to reopen Mountain Pass. It appears that neither of us know whether or not these companies actually held debt in Molycorp.
I don’t think that is accurate. Do you have a source?
Molycorp’s project Phoenix was primarily funded by equity and bonds while the share price was high due to speculation in REE’s. For instance, the initial funding came from the IPO that garnered nearly $400MM when the price was at $14/share. There were secondary offerings after this. The company’s downfall started with the acquisition of Neo and the bonds associated with that billion dollar investment. It appears Apollo Management and Oaktree Capital were the top bondholders. Oaktree later provided a secure loan that gave them seniority in the bankruptcy filings.
Goldman Sachs and Traxys were both involved in the initial purchase of Mountain Pass from Chevron. I think they also provided some of the initial capital after the purchase.
https://www.traxys.com/upload/cms/press_pdf/34173cb38f07f89ddbebc2ac9128303f.pdf
https://www.wsj.com/articles/molycorp-creditor-oaktree-scores-with-savvy-move-1435525937
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2015/03/23/the-rare-earths-stock-market-failure-60-minutes-forgot/#267ca9d155e2
http://fortune.com/2011/11/18/molycorps-1-billion-rare-earth-gamble/
RW and other followers,
The main page of this board is in major need of an update. Anyone want to volunteer to do a write up to summarize the company and Sunrise project? Any suggestions if I do it?
Do you take that to mean that Zachry is actively working on the detailed surface engineering?
I hear words like "have engaged" and "can provide engineering", but unlike the news releases about Nordmin, we haven't seen anything official.
I'm not disputing that they "may be" working on engineering already, but going on your theme of what we "know for sure", I'm not sure we can definitively say they have started the engineering.
On another note, there are a couple of comments of confidence on the video now. One of them is from Brecht Arnaert, who had previously written about Niocorp on Seeking Alpha and has participated in at least one private placement.
If I may add a few things to this:
We know about Nordmin. As of now, all we know about Zachry is that they are still the leading candidate for the detailed surface engineering. We don't know how much work has been done or how far along we are in terms of contract negotiations with them to officially start the engineering.
Boilermaker has recently hit on a couple of points in regards to engineering updates and updates to the FS. I don't know exactly what the Ontario Securities Commission considers material changes, but I wonder if a required update to the FS is the primary reason why Niocorp hasn't "officially" accepted the updated plans from Nordmin. I think it would make more sense to update the surface and mine plan concurrently. So if BM is correct that the Nordmin changes would require an update, I would not expect to see an announcement on the Nordmin engineering until the surface engineering is also complete.
I completely agree with your comments on the public notice period. In addition to the points you made, there is also the simple fact that we don't make it to the public notice phase until detailed engineering is complete. This takes time, and again it does not appear that it has really even started. The detailed engineering may also be necessary for financing. The FS by nature is a +/-10% document. Finalizing the cost of the project seems important to me when you are signing off on financing deals, especially given the potential equity involved and the goal to minimize dilution. No need to give away shares if the cost is overestimated, right?
Finally, there are still boxes to be checked for the German loan guarantee. The next step is preliminary approval for the program. This is required to be publicly disclosed prior to the final financing agreements being signed. I don't believe this is much reason to worry between the public disclosure and the final agreement, but it is one more news release that one should expect to see prior to an announcement on a final deal.
These are the primary reasons that lead to the conclusion I posted a few weeks ago that I do not expect to see a financing agreement soon, specifically I have doubts that it can be pulled off this fiscal year (which ends 6/30).
The permits would be required for certain surface construction at a minimum. I would tend to agree with the rest of your post except I have doubts as to the extent of work Zachary has completed without a deal, assuming a deal hasn’t been reached but not reported since the call.
http://deq.ne.gov/NDEQProg.nsf/OnWeb/AirCPP
It’s not happening this fiscal year, that’s for sure. One needs only to listen to the messaging on the air quality permit and read up on the requirements to know this.
There will be another private placement or Lind deal soon. It was clear from the investors call that they would need more money to complete the air quality permit application. After that we know there will be a 30 day public comment window. There will be plenty of foreshadowing on a finance deal with that permit. What’s clear now is that major financing is a ways off.
There’s no legal requirement to have these things in place prior to financing, hence why the company can say the permit is not necessary. What should be obvious is that no institution is going to lend a large amount of money without these assurances.
Molycorp aready did this. They drilled 106 holes in the 70’s and 80’s in the area that showed the niobium deposit to be an anomaly in the carbonatite. It may be larger than indicated, but definitely not over 10,000 acres. You can review the hole spacing in the FS for a better idea of the open areas. The depth is the great unknown.
BOT report.
I brought the warrants up months ago and I simply can’t believe the recent infatuation with them.
Put yourself in the shoes of “The Company”. The Company used warrants to buy cash. The company could have used grains of salt to buy cash or grains of gold. As a shareholder, would you prefer they buy the necessary cash with salt or gold?
If the share price doesn’t hit the warrant strike price, they essentially used the salt grains (in part) to buy cash. This obviously doesn’t mean the company wants to see the stock price stay low perpetually, but when we are talking a matter of months and over 5% equity the answer should be obvious to all. Warrant holders can always benefit further to the warrants by buying on the open market and getting shares into “stronger hands” while simultaneously driving up the share price.
Mainstream coverage on Niobium.
https://slate.com/technology/2018/12/united-states-china-competition-strategy-critical-minerals.html
Please provide a source for the 9.50 valuation.
Lol. I hope not. You could always hit a cold spell but 15 below zero is exceptionally cold in that area. Even in mid January southeast NE is above freezing most days. Most of Nebraska goes through many freeze/thaw cycles each year.
If googles your only source for DD you’re in a world of hurt. No one said it’s publicly traded. There’s a difference between an exchange and a benchmark. The data from today came from the port of Rotterdam scrap pricing, which would serve as an adequate benchmark for reliable Niobium pricing. I’m guessing it was all obtained by Argus. No such benchmark exists for Sc, but that’s just one of the many reasons as to why Nb and Sc offtakes are apples and oranges.
https://www.niocorp.com/index.php/press-releases/308-niocorp-completes-offtake-agreement-with-cmc-cometals-for-one-quarter-of-niocorp-s-potential-ferroniobium-production
CMC will purchase this amount of Ferroniobium under a market-based pricing structure
Where do you think the pricing for the chart in today’s presentation came from?