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Most likely outcome from the call is a big fat nothing, just like every other one - likely scenario is +- 5-10%. Least case scenario is they announce something before but don’t count on it. We will hear more blah blah blah about how great this new feas study is, which it is, but nobody really cared, otherwise we would be at 80-1 buck.
The market says show me the money.
Finally something real. I would say they have to disclose these updated numbers so the economics are clearly official to the board, shareholders, and financiers, prior to laying out the key next step.
I will be buying some more today.
The rationale is dead simple.
1) The company has not been able to announce financing despite achieving tremendous progress on a variety of other fronts. Without financing, we are a field, and office, and a whole lot of numbers on paper. I should not forget really great people.
2) The market for scandium is outrageously exciting, but it means nothing to the market if you can't show investors with specificity when you are planning on getting it out of the ground and get it in the hands of those who can use it as first adopters to drive the revolution. Until then, its just a plan backed by a really smart strategy and several off take agreements for when or if it does happen.
3) at the outset of the mark era, he said it usually takes numerous years for the average miner to get things into production. he did say he would do it much quicker (he started out great with the feas study then we went flat). and if he can land the plan in the next few months, then I would actually believe what he said. but until then, most investors I believe will defer to a statistic, which some feel we are becoming. The stat would mean at least a few more years in my view.
Don't get me wrong, I am still here and invested. If we go drop a few dimes, I will pick up some more. I do believe if the big wind catches the sail, we could be making google like money. All we have now is periodic fart size wind, which is not enough.
this could happen here. i always said that we need a 60 minutes, with a spin compelling enough that polishes the tarnish off the landscape of molycorp, and china taking over the world of rare earths.
the blog, and more importantly, the price of niobium highlighted must have a very meaningful impact on NPV, but from the current share price, one would never know it. if they reformulated the modelling to just address the niobium demand, with only the limited offtake of sc already, I wonder what the financials would look like.
I have always said that if they can stage investment and related production capacity, they could have had shovels in the ground already and generating, $$ in bank, and new natural demand from industry using the new supplies of scandium. this would drive up demand for sc, bring in new financing to complete stages 2 to 4 of plant expansion - plenty less dilution along the way.
but of course, the folks at niocorp know best how this should play out. I just want to see them move towards an outcome on all this know how, planning, intelligence, market potential, and financing interest.
we need to stop being the wet noodle and land the deal already.
You can and you should. This is healthy.
I am not new to this kind of dog and pony show, so I feel compelled to offer my opinion since it seems that so many have put their life savings on the line.
I would say that the winds are blowing favourably for commodities as we enter the late cycle stage before recession hits. Gold and silver are showing some promise, and dialogue on dependence for rare earths from china is ramping up. Check out Rick Mills aheadoftheheard.com
Rick has an article which touches on scandium and US reliance/production of REE but fails to mention Niocorp, which is too bad. Maybe someone from here can lobby him.
So if they can get the financing before the economy takes a royal deuce, then we will be well positioned to take advantage of cheaper construction during the downturn.
Anyone remember Mark saying we should be completed construction and moving into production by 2018? Well folks, that day has come and gone folks. Lets hope he can work his magic for a 2021 launch.
I have been patiently watching the key developments here over last four years.
I am at the point now where, despite all the positive aspects of the project from a strategic alignment point of view, the company really needs to land the plane here on financing. I am sure they are trying to get the most value for shareholders with the deliberations they may or may not be having with various parties, but if they can’t get a shovel in the ground, then what good is all this?
If they say that “due diligence takes time”, they are 100% correct. But it simply does not take this long in my opinion to ink a deal and this is a lever they are using right now to buy time for new money to be placed on the scandium component of this play. The market is simply not there today, and looking for an investor willing to back this visionary confidence is not an easy thing to do. What I would like to see is a chart that shows demand picking up substantially from the levels of the last four years.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully value the idea here and management is great. Maybe too great. I just feel they need to stop placating the congregation of Niocorp and start moving the file with a concrete deliverable on financing.
I haven’t posted in some time. Just waiting for either a scandium off take or financing to come along. The rest is noise and entertainment.
Largo the cash cow, Niocorp trailing as the emerging opportunity, and IBC the demonstrated manufacturer and store front. If I were Mark, I would form a new parent company, finance that to buy the three outright. Having Largo in the portfolio is the key to an overall more palatable debt equity ratio to get Niocorp off the ground and buys time to allow for scandium market to get going. All one has to do is look back at where largo was less than two years ago.
Three are perfectly complementary. The whole value then becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
This is real, the financing interest. The slight sell off yesterday, fine. I would not be surprised if we didnt break a buck in the next three weeks. The viz at Senate is the platform to attract new capital.
If Jim is going to committee this week, I am quite certain we will draw considerable attention to the investment play here. Watch for the orders to come in as we are still cheap. It will get noticed somewhere and could very well go viral.
In light of national security arguments potus made for even the friendliest of neighbours, I believe this one goes head to head with the US’s biggest market threat which is China. Perfect storm. This project is a poster child for the administration and for Americans in general. They will all have to place nice with Angela and Justin ??
All we need is to get into the fox news space and we will be double of where we are now in my opinion. I hesitate to say 60 minutes, that would be ideal but we all know how the rare earth saga ended up..are Jim and Mark ready for that interview? I think they could handle that one head on...
You are not.
Watching closely for market action tomorrow and weeks to come as this all gets digested.
Love the company but I will fall off my chair if it goes up mpre than 10 percent. Nobody seems to care about these great milestones unless and until they show us the money.
This is possible.
I do think that the lack of information is unfortunate, and necessary.
Jim, talk to us buddy. Interim financing update would be fine.
I also think the engine on southwest airlines may have had a better chance of keeping in tact the other day if it had a little of our secret sauce in the metallurgy.
Very unfortunate for the dear soul who lost her life.
This is standard audit language, as you suggest.
Based upon the graph of three stages, we have increased odds significantly that we will move into production. I would say our odds are even higher given the experience at hand building the concept of operations.
I also agree with your assessment of the assessment. This is the independence the banks need to pull the trigger. They never needed any more detail than the feas itself to explain the “what”. Political climate couldn’t be better to build a mine in the interest of national economic and related security. World is changing very very quickly and the advantage will be with those with the best tech and tech materials.
I didn’t want to declare this until I had more shares but I think we are at a key point in both technical and key fundamentals where we could possibly see the last days at these prices.
My own experience managing mega projects suggests that documents like this engineering report are typically not published in final form until the point at which one can reasonably expect a material or key follow on event.
My speculation only...
As far as I can see, the list is still proposed and not final. They are taking comments until April I recall as part of the public engagement process. Then once its final, we can look forward to a bump.
I think that I may regret not buying more, and this will go out with a huge huge bang, or complete bust. I feel there is a reason why scandium has not in the history of man kind been produced in large quantities and it has to do with two indisputable facts - one, that its hard to economically pull out of ground alone (we have that covered), and two, mass demand requires some level of affordability (hence our issue).
However, I often ask myself why scy has not been financed as their scandium is offered at walmart pricing. But cheap doesn’t always work. Ever been to the dollar store?
So my musing leads me to the conclusion that we have more fundamentals locked down, and the pricing will take care of itself once capital pools realize they can create the next debeers or cbmm. Yes, we have to watch out for scy being bought out by chinese and dumping on market like they did with molycorp, but quality does count for something. With Sc being on critical metals list, does this imply heavy anti dumping trade tariffs would apply to these threats to protect the domestic industry? I say yes.
I will say to you what I said to Jim over a year ago.
Start smaller and scale out in modular expansion mode. Options on first right of refusal on subsequent build outs for the first financier to the gate.
By the time the first phase is in production, the stock price will be 5-8 bucks.
Does it not make more sense to raise equity at that price? Also, a flood of scandium is not needed at the outset if Niocorp wants to be the CBMM of scandium.
Now get er done Marky Mark.
With what money.
They have enough to bridge them to financing, but all this work is expected to cost $25 million, no? Please correct me anyone....anyone...Bueller, Bueller
The contract is likely contingent upon financing, at least the engineering design portion. So yesterdays news is not really material to outstanding concerns shareholders have about financing and sc pricing risk.
The Canadian government has been publicly burned from the story I posted yesterday, so additional due diligence and care is likely in order prior to EDC forking out financing to this sub. Politics 101.
Time to cool our jets a little on expectations. This is the mood on EDC lending to mining companies.
https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2018/02/05/ottawa-lent-1-billion-to-a-mining-company-that-allegedly-avoided-nearly-700-million-in-canadian-taxes.html
The fate of the modern world is in the hands of those who bring to life fine scientific ingredients such as scandium.
To get this out of the ground in any meaningful quantity to change the world means that someone has to be the one.
The Donald is the one.
If Trump wants to keep trying to Make America Great again, the adminstration would be very wise to include it on the list.
No brainer, but you never know..
https://ca.yahoo.com/style/why-planes-nearly-always-painted-123118842.html
We go to great lengths to save weight. Case in point.
I give full credit on strategic communications here - at home and abroad.
My question/concern is why did they release the tax news today. Unless the conditional approval came in over the weekend, then this should have been put out last week - prior or with the inclusion of the revenue/npv sensitivity analysis update.
There is a fundamental reason we trade at 42 cents and not 4.20, and it has to do with the fact that nothing moves this stock unless it relates to institutional/big financing interest, of a material/definitive dimension. Really too bad, but seems to be the reality based upon history.
I believe in the opportunity here and it may be worth the gamble, the vision is solid, but the execution strategy with scandium needs some work in my opinion in order to bring the cash cows to the trough.
Mostly to disclose to investors a fuller appreciation of the downside picture, and perhaps upside as well. My sense is that its another way to address the concern around scandium pricing risk, without revising the baseline numbers and questioning the integrity of the experts. Could be wrong.
I thankfully sold all my holdings a week ago, not because of a specific concern here other than the sideways shuffle, but to seize another opportunity.
I will see where this goes Monday and if there is a grand boxing day sale, I will pick some up.
Stay cool people.
I am almost ready to make another buy here. I sense some opportunity to get in during tax loss season, perhaps low to mid 30 cent range cdn.
Anyone know how much cash reserves are on hand? It would save me a call to Jim.
Buy good quality when others are fearful.
Listened to webcast.
The main point for me, is if they can pull off a cbmm like control of the scandium market and be price setters and not price takers, then this will fly. They have to produce it before any major competitor gets to market and create demand in that market exceeding well beyond their production limits in order to command that entitlement, and that is where the financing-investing interest would be, if it came to be. Lots of time needed to hurdle but still plenty of upside potential, maybe. I will buy back in with additional positions if it dips to less than 35 cents cdn.
Not really a sign of anything, and they would not have signed it if it was binding as they don’t have this money. Another wonderful tactic to create some shareholder excitement. If it moves the price, I will eat my shorts because there have been better announcements that did nothing.
Institutional interest is best defined by their real investing action.
Buy orders for large quantity of shares on the open market is the only performance indicator that matters to us in this context.
This will not go any higher in my opinion, and will slowly keep sliding. Whatever mark and jim say this week will do nothing to reverse the situation, based upon zero reaction track record on even some of the best updates they have given. The market needs to see at least one of the three following things:
1. Some street cred on scandium pricing assumptions manifesting itself by way of price validated off-take of a material quantity
2. Some form of concrete definitive or intent agreement on financing
3. Reformulation on production volume and pricing scenarios
Institutions will invest and loft the price if they themselves have visibilty on one of the three items above in my view, then watch out. If we can’t get this comfort, then why should they lay it down. Sad part is we know all very capable hands are on deck, but the market is telling us she doesn’t care and talk is still cheap.
Glta
Good writer, very thoughful insights coming from his corner.
If there is someone so inclined, they should flip him an email on pricing clarification. He has a following..
The perpetual slide as we wait for news, any news of materiality..... Never had an enema, but I suspect it is more enjoyable than watching this share price.
So less than 12 months before we anticipate anything material on the financing front? Thats a long time.
So that leaves us with waiting on an announcement for a scandium off take in the interim to propel us off the lows here.
And as I mentioned before, perhaps a preemptive institutional buy on the market which would rear its head on volume/accumulation indicators. That would be great!
Lots to get excited about long term, but the price is less than inspiring and drifting as of late which has me concerned - I would say this is very very frustrating.
I am out on 70% of my former holdings on nb until I see the direction of the wind (might I say gentle breeze) change.
Jim Sims, know you are out there.
Respectfully, how about we make a few compromises on the perfect project in order to get the price rolling in the right direction. I think you know what I am getting at here.
Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Lots of room to perfect the situation once fundamentals are in place.
Why a banker or investor can’t use a table of contents is beyond me.
The 100 page report is helpful but certainly not necessary for anyone to make either a priminary intent or fundamental expression of interest.
So, if you can read, all the power to ya.
This is a great chart and cycle seems to completely make sense. We are in the low period post feas study. Should have sold at 1.90 and come back right now.. ughhh.
Given that everything in the cycle has been accelerated (characterization and feas is half time of normal mining firm, one could reasonably expect the next steps to be halved as well.)
That would mean now, and next three-6 months has the potential to get quite exciting, at least from current levels.
Expansion of thyssen krup for niobium, and 25-50 percent of scandium would do it. Would that also increase value of the loan guarantee?
Bingo
Its not only the message but how you say it.
I speak to big crowds as part of my day job, so I do know the principle here first hand.. the clues are there as you say in my opinion.
I do want to pick up some more, but in a wait and see on something more immediate. Would love to roll profit from that into this, and restore my holdings to what they were at 11 cents, perhaps before its too late.
Sermon 27764
Good on them - its the right characterization in my opinion. I recall talking about this notion in an earlier post.
You are bang on Jim. They do know way more.