The market reacted negatively to their PEA teaser.
They are looking at a $900+ million capex with an NPV between $400 and 900 million, presenting an IRR of about 15%.
I found it interesting they used $46/kg for the value of niobium. I will revise my figures for niostar for comparison, as I assumed $35-40/kg.
I think that the capex is in line with what I expected it to be, but their board on ihub was going with the pie in the sky 400 million quoted in those local newspaper articles. Dickie had said 4 years ago in a quote that their mine would cost 300-400 million. Now, they are letting shareholder know it will be over twice that.
The less than 15% IRR is also troubling for a project with such a high capex and for a mining operation that is less well understood by the market.
The 6.50/kg is an attention grabber, but includes credits for the two biproducts.
Interesting to me is that the PEA was supposed to be due out, but only this summary was released in advance.
The subject for another post, but that's not what you asked and not why we are here. Couldn't help but give some thoughts on it here as relates to our project.
----
So, it seems the market wasn't too thrilled with the nonrelease release of the Nebraska project PEA.
hopefully, we will find in the PEA for neme that there are biproducts that can be processed like tantalum and neodymium that will lower our production costs.
Still a tough lesson on the difference between a 300 million or less capex to one pushing a billion.
