recap by june, page-4

i don't hold min, i held wvl at $1.50 and sold at $2.00 on the way up. wvl is a widow-maker, and noone will make money from it.

windimurra 1 (1999 - 2002 ?) - disaster
windimurra 2 (2006 - 2009) - disaster
windimurra 3 (2010 - ?) - can you guess ?

why ? well, technically, to operate the plant you need large amounts of gas and other reagents, and you need to set up long-term supply contracts. the trouble is vanadium is very cyclical, and generally it is worth not very much most of the time, and worth a bit more on peaks. the trouble is you're buying all the stuff on take-or-pay terms, so if you don't use the gas you still have to pay for it. when the price is low you can not shut the plant down so you end up producing at a loss, burning capital until you either run out of cash or the price gets better. windimurra is a very high-cost producer because the ore is very low grade.

do min and ati know what they're doing ? unfortunately, no probably not, they must be putting some fairly optimistic assumptions in their termsheets. i heard the camp is being sold off at the request of commonwealth bank, who want to recover their cash and min / ati didn't bid enough.

the place should just be left to the goats.