Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum 2018 has begun and will welcome its first battery mineral plays to the stage this afternoon, as punters and companies alike consider the prospects for graphite, lithium, nickel and cobalt, among others.
Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum opener and chairman Nick Giorgetta, who gave the first presentation this morning, believes battery minerals have a positive outlook.
READ: Diggers and dealers mining forum outlook ‘optimistic’ as upturn continues
“Lithium, zinc, copper, they are all really emerging, almost unstoppable — all the battery metals,” Giorgetta told Proactive Investors last week.
“Production is going to come up, probably the prices — some of them will go up — although lithium has moved quite a bit already.”
The Diggers chairman acknowledged the current state of play for nickel and expressed his amazement at the price of shining star cobalt.
“Nickel hasn’t really reacted as much as it should but I think it will,” he said.
“Cobalt, well I think it’s still early, and everyone is looking for it, but cobalt is almost a precious metal at a price of $80,000, which is quite remarkable.”
Battery Minerals managing director David Flanagan
Monday battery mineral plays
Battery Minerals Ltd (ASX:BAT) (FRA:0FS) and its charismatic managing director David Flanagan will open battery metals proceedings with a 2.30pm session today half an hour before afternoon tea.
Flanagan also spoke to Proactive Investors last week and acknowledged shocks in the markets for miners and predicted the mining sector would be 15-20% better off in the next 12 months.
“We’re seeing underinvestment generally in infrastructure and exploration and new project development and, as soon as it’s given a chance the market realises, it’s going to be short in a whole bunch of strategic commodities,” he said.
READ: Diggers and Dealers chairman expects ‘buoyant’ forum
Battery Minerals upped its Elephant graphite resource by 14% last month at its Montepuez project in Mozambique.
The upcoming stage I 50,000 tonnes a year graphite flake project has a 20-year project life tipped to grow to about 100,000tpa with project stage II.
Flanagan told Proactive Investors: “Over the next five months we will complete construction of a 100-man camp, which is only about four weeks away.
“We’re going to complete all earthworks and civils in preparation for assembly of a processing facility and we’re going to have completed the tailings dam construction and all the associated roads and we’ll have installed power.”
Flanagan said the company was also completing a feasibility study for a second project in Mozambique, the Balama Central Graphite Project.
Speaking broadly, he said: “We’ve got exploration ongoing and we’ve also got some test work ongoing on downstream processing.
“The business is advancing (the Montepuez) construction project and will also be completing financing of that project.
“It’s not completely financed yet, we’ll complete that hopefully over the next six months and then on the back of that we’ll complete construction next year and then be exporting into hopefully a raging graphite market in early 2020.”
The company has been working on debt financing for the remainder of its Montepuez development costs and completed a $20 million capital raising in the June quarter.
It held $19 million cash on hand on July 20.
READ: Battery Minerals Ltd ups elephant graphite deposit by 14% at Mozambican Montepuez Project
A lithium ion battery
Tuesday battery mineral plays
Western Areas Ltd (ASX:WSA) (FRA:FX9) (OTCMKTS:WNARF) will take the stage on Tuesday at 12.25pm, just before lunch.
The nickel producer and base metals developer’s managing director and CEO Dan Lougher will deliver a presentation
Western Areas has experienced share price volatility with its exposure to nickel price fluctuations.
The company is in a joint venture with smaller play St George Mining Ltd (ASX:SGQ) which started drilling new massive sulphide nickel-copper targets at the Mt Alexander project last month.
The project is in the northeast of the Goldfields, home to the Diggers annual forum, and St George owns 75% while Western Areas retains 25% non-contributing interest until a decision to mine.
Mincor Resources NL (FRA:MV3) (FRA:MV3) managing director Peter Muccilli will then take the stage at 1.5pm after lunch.
Muccilli will deliver a talk titled Dawn of a New Nickel Era, a Powerpoint presentation the company has shared with the market this morning.
Mincor’s MD will highlight the “dominant” land position the company holds in the nickel-gold mining district of Kambalda, southeast of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in the Goldfields.
The miner, developer and explorer’s high-grade resources include 3.3 million tonnes at 3.6% nickel.
Mincor was holding $14.3 million cash on June 30.
A number of companies are cooking up cobalt
Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX:PLS) (FRA:PLR) (OTCMKTS:PILBF) managing director and CEO Ken Brinsden will take the stage in Tuesday’s second-last presentation on the back of recent excitement for the company.
On Friday it revealed its definitive feasibility study (DFS) for stage II of its Pilgangoora Lithium-Tantalum Project in Western Australia had confirmed robust economics for the 5 million tonnes a year expansion of its capacity.
The DFS depicted a robust, high-margin operation with an initial 17-year mine life with life-of-mine revenue forecast of $12.2 billion and life-of-mine earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $6.3 billion.
The company’s February deal with proposed joint venture partner POSCO included agreement for the South Korean conglomerate to make an immediate $79.6 million equity investment in Pilbara Minerals.
READ: Pilbara Minerals confirms potential for major expansion of Pilgangoora Lithium Project
Independence Group NL’s (ASX:IGO) (FRA:IDZ) (OTCMKTS:IPGDF) managing director and CEO Peter Bradford will deliver the final presentation on Tuesday at 5pm ahead of the The Kal Tire Mining Traditional Bash in the sponsors marquee.
The high-profile Flinders Range company revealed last month it had upgraded its resource, with 96% of its nickel now in the measured category.
Independence’s total contained metal resource is 300,000 tonnes nickel, 109,000 tonnes copper, 9,000 tonnes cobalt and 2.2 million ounces gold at its operations.
The company is focused on its projects in Western Australia - the world-class wholly-owned Nova nickel-copper-cobalt operation and its Tropicana Gold Mine, which it owns a 30% stake in with a joint venture with Diggers company presentations opener AngloGold Ashanti Ltd (NYSE:AU) (JSE:ANG) (ASX:AGG).
The company achieved a 23% June quarter increase in nickel production at Nova, an operation it showed early Diggers arrivals at the weekend.
READ: Independence Group reveals upgraded resource with 96% nickel in measured category
Wednesday battery mineral plays
Global Geoscience Limited (ASX:GSC) (FRA:4G1) managing director Bernard Rowe will open battery minerals presentations at 9.45 just before morning tea, on the back of encouraging news released on Friday.
The company shared its pre-feasibility study for the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project in Nevada, in the US, finding the project could support 30 years of mining.
Global Geoscience also reported higher cash flow could be achieved in the earlier years by targeting higher grade lithium mineralisation at the North American project.
READ: Global Geoscience’s PFS confirms Nevada lithium-boron resource can support a 30-year mine life
Collerina Cobalt Ltd (ASX:CLL) technical director Rimas Kairaitas will conclude battery metals proceedings at 10.55am with a presentation on the company and shining star cobalt.
The company unveiled encouraging assays from a 1,668-metre field campaign in New South, finding high-cobalt tenor nickel-cobalt laterite mineralisation beneath shallow cover.
Among its highlight assays were: 32 metres at 0.26% cobalt, 0.52% nickel, 5.9% aluminium and 96 ppm scandium, including 6 metres at 0.69% cobalt, 0.73% nickel, 9.5% aluminium and 93 ppm scandium; and 11 metres at 0.27% cobalt, 0.54% nickel, 8% aluminium and 248 ppm scandium.
READ: Collerina Cobalt reveals high-grade cobalt discovery in New South Wales
Cobalt, aka Co
Diggers chairman Giorgetta will deliver the forum's final address on Wednesday before the 6.30pm The WesTrac Gala Dinner to be held in the sponsors marquee.
To view this year’s Diggers program, visit https://diggersndealers.com.au/#programme.