Ann: Opuwo Project Update and Board Changes, page-171

Since everyone else is having a say, here is my take on affairs. 

Standard mining practice, if you have a resource but the commodity prices is low, put it on care & maintenance. Less what other people think, the Co price is the most important factor in the economics of this. Nobody has mentioned price stability. To allow investment, the price needs to stabilise. The larger players know this so they deliberately de-stabilise the price thus pushing the investment decisions into a high risk category. This will not change with Co until a real demand is generated from multiple players in the Auto industry. How far away this is is anyone's guess. 

As for the future of this project: 

1. Needs to have an open pit component; 
2. Needs to be operated by a big mining house;
3. Needs to get a resource upgrade; 
4. Is a long LOM play, similar to a large copper or gold project to justify the investment decision. 
 
Point 4 is critical as low grade large tonnage deposits need a stable Co price. The upside for this project is large deposits are generally preferred by larger operators as they can be ramped to produce larger tonnages of end product at a lower cost per tonne rate than market standards. Probably easiest way to get to mine for this project is by reducing investment risk by:

1. Get a long term offtake deal ( 10 year type deal) at a Co price that allows the mine to proceed. IE. Break even plus cost of cash plus 5-10%. This enables investment decision and allows production albeit at a sub-optimal and capped ROR. I can't believe that there wouldn't be one or two Co consumers that wouldn't be considering hedging their Co pricing over the next 10 years.

2. Bring in larger mining house to get mine operational. This will also dilute SH value but unfortunately from a risk point of view others have a better track record of development and production. This is important to institutional investors. 

3. Obtain deal with Namibian govt to limit royalty. Given what had been observed at DRC, this needs to happen. Unfortunately this may result is a higher upfront royalty but locked in for the LOM duration. 

Clearly all of these dilute SH returns but as a junior mining company it's not like your a low risk investment especially when trying to get a mine up. Remember though, projects like this can ramp up if Co price improves of they are operating. 

My only concern is that there is not enough interest at the break even cost to get the offtake agreement done, in which case the project is in trouble until a stable higher Co price is realised.