To be quite frank I thought this was one of his poorer interviews. He looked really tired and didn't ram home a lot of points he previously yabbered about. I think he is personally also feeling the pressure of the lower than expected SP and events of last quarter and the Freudian slip is right at the start where he says I hope 2019 is better than 2018. He didn't really explain a lot of things well in this interview like his previous interviews where I kept a running log - refer Post #:
35904467
Didn't really mention strategy of pursing Offtakes for Equity and/or binding Offtakes, but was essentially talking finance from other avenues (the one that counts and gets the market excited, especially from enshrining a timeline IMO, is equity for Offtakes like PLS did because that gives more certainty around timelines than getting finance from 'other avenues' and then trying to bed down offtakes albeit there is still link between Offtakes and finance). Didn't get a sense of comfort around timelines but at least they are focussing on approval processes which is a must and EPA especially. That at least should ensure a 2022 production timeline albeit would prefer earlier production start up. Comments around demand/supply imbalance spot on and the fact that the long term average price will bet he $10 per pound to $15 per pound mark I tend to agree with (and that will further benefit vanadium uptake in steel and then batteries IMO) so if go back to the PFS suspect he is really saying the best estimate of IRR in the PFS is 27% (refer Post #: 36902701) .
The idea around the MET tests is to improve the recovery rates in the oxidised layers which I went through in this post a month or so back and as @M2HB has also alluded to - and in the PFS they didn't change the input assumptions from the previous SS either. That is where the biggest upside in the DFS (and in particular IRR) can come from IMO - improving the recovery rate from the oxidosed layers a key, a point he didn't really expand into and what the actual intention would be in the DFS. Refer Post #: 35904467
Anyway, the pilot plant and upcoming drill to get the samples for the tests the next milestone here as working through the environmental approval processes.
All IMO
(20min delay)
