Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 5:59 PM on Tuesday, February 11th, 2020
When a globally renowned technology partner – who supplies plasma torch technology to US Aircraft Carriers – says the following about your company, you are forced to stand up and take notice:
“We never thought, when we first embarked on this project, that we would be developing game-changing technology sought after by the Lithium-ion battery market.”
– Peter Pascali, President and CEO of PyroGenesis Canada Inc.
There is no shortage of small cap companies claiming they want to supply materials to the Lithium-Ion battery market …. but only one of them is pursuing the material that can increase capacity by as much as 10X ….. Silicon.
HPQ Silicon (HPQ:TSXV) isn’t just pursuing Silicon, they are on the verge of providing the market with multiple high-value silicon products sought after by Corporations building the next generation of Lithium-ion batteries, including one undisclosed company that is already under NDA with HPQ Silicon.
One of the best parts? HPQ Silicon doesn’t have to worry about capital expenditure barriers that come with mining battery metals …. because Silicon is manufactured and HPQ has a patent pending process to manufacture Silicon at some of the lowest prices in the world. A process that is fully funded all the way through to their pilot plant launching this year.Â
If you believe in a future driven by electric vehicles and renewable energy, grab your favourite beverage and watch this video interview with CEO Bernard Tourillon.
Posted by AGORACOM
at 2:30 PM on Tuesday, February 11th, 2020
SPONSOR: Lomiko Metals is focused on the exploration and development of minerals for the new green economy such as lithium and graphite. Lomiko owns 80% of the high-grade La Loutre graphite Property, Lac Des Iles Graphite Property and the 100% owned Quatre Milles Graphite Property. Lomiko is uniquely poised to supply the growing EV battery market. Click Here For More Information
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)
has singled out accessibility of raw materials as a pressing issue,
warning that a prompt solution for the development of batteries is
needed to make electric mobility and sustainable transport possible.
The European Union needs to secure permanent access to raw materials
as soon as possible in order to develop a strong battery industry for
electric vehicles. The alarm was sounded at the debate held in Brussels
on 5th February 2020 by the Section for Transport, Energy,
Infrastructure and the Information Society (TEN).
Widespread e-mobility, with zero COâ‚‚ emissions, is the next key step
towards making sustainable transport and climate neutrality happen.
Nevertheless, only by having ongoing access to raw materials for
batteries will Europe be able to move away from fossil-based fuels and
embrace electrification.
Colin Lustenhouwer, rapporteur for last year’s EESC opinion on
batteries, pointed out that it was vital to raise awareness of the
urgent measures needed.
“We must take immediate action†said Mr Lustenhouwer. “The
accessibility of raw materials is an ongoing issue in an area where
Europe has few resources and would like to guarantee supply.
Electrification is the only solution for sustainable fuel and this
requires batteries.â€
Pierre Jean Coulon, president of the TEN section, added that for
Europe’s sustainable future, the whole battery lifespan needs to be
considered and that European countries need to equip themselves with the
resources needed. European businesses can only become a major player in
battery development and deployment in the global market by taking a
huge leap forward over the next few years.
Car batteries are a crucial issue for Europe’s future and should not
be taken for granted. They account for 40 percent of the cost of an
electric vehicle, but 96 percent of them are produced outside Europe.
The raw materials are not available in the EU to the extent needed and
have to be imported. Lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt mainly come
from South America and Asia. This means that if the EU does not act, it
will become increasingly dependent on third countries such as Brazil and
China.
Furthermore, the need to secure the supply of raw materials for
batteries is leading to international competition that may well affect
the geopolitical balance and cause political tensions in exporting
countries. The EU therefore needs to act swiftly to ensure that it has
access on the global market and so will not be vulnerable as a result of
the imminent race for raw materials.
The European strategy for batteries must be comprehensive and allow
for their entire lifecycle, from creation to deployment and recycling.
All actors have to be involved and pull together, in line with the
principles of the value-chain approach which factors in every stage.
The EESC flagged up the importance of material recycling in its 2019
opinion on batteries, where ‘urban mining’ was promoted as a possible
way to build new batteries by recovering elements from used products and
waste, such as discarded electric and electronic devices.
In the opinion, the Committee called for a strong European battery
industry and supported the Strategic Action Plan presented by the
European Commission, emphasising two priorities: on the one hand,
heavier investment was needed to achieve the necessary level of
technological expertise while on the other, solutions had to be found to
secure the supply of raw materials from third countries and EU sources.
Stressing that the EU needed to do more and adopt a structural
approach to batteries, the EESC was one of the first institutions to
bring together all the social partners to point out that batteries are
one of the main challenges for Europe’s green and prosperous future.
Posted by AGORACOM
at 1:10 PM on Tuesday, February 11th, 2020
Sponsor: Loncor is a Canadian gold explorer that controls over 2,400,000 high grade ounces outside of a Barrick JV. The Ngayu JV property is 200km southwest of the Kibali gold mine, operated by Barrick, which produced 800,000 ounces of gold in 2018. Barrick manages and funds exploration at the Ngayu project until the completion of a pre-feasibility study on any gold discovery meeting the investment criteria of Barrick. Newmont $NGT$NEM owns 7.8%, Resolute $RSG owns 27% Click Here for More Info
The
Fed is trapped. If it stops adding money to the money supply, the
stock market will crash. It’s already extended the repo money printing
program twice. The first extension was to February and now it has
extended it again to April.
What
was billed as a temporary “liquidity problem†in the overnight repo
market is instead significant problems developing in the credit and
derivative markets to an extent that it appears to be putting Too Big To
Fail bank balance sheets in harm’s way. That’s my analysis – the
official narrative is that “there’s nothing to see thereâ€.
The
delinquency and default rates for below investment grade corporate
debt (junk bonds) and for subprime consumer debt are soaring. Privately funded credit,
leveraged bank loans, CLO’s and subprime asset-backed trusts (credit
cards, ABS, CMBS) are starting to melt down. The repo money printing
operations is a direct bail out of leveraged funds, mezzanine funds and
banks, which are loaded up on those subprime credit structures. Not
only that, but a not insignificant amount of OTC credit default
derivatives is “wrapped around†those finance vehicles, which further
accelerates the inevitable credit meltdown “Minsky Moment.â€
The
point here is that I am almost certain, and a growing number of
truth-seeking analysts are coming to the same conclusion, that by April
the Fed will once again extend and expand the repo operations. As Milton
Friedman said, “nothing is so permanent as a temporary government
program.â€
Gold
will sniff this out, just like it sniffed out the September repo
implementation at the beginning of June 2019. I think there’s a good
chance that gold will be trading above $1600 by this June, if not
sooner.
Eventually
the market will discover the junior exploration stocks and the share
prices will be off to the races. This is part of the reason Eric Sprott
continues to invest aggressively in the companies he considers to have
the highest probability of getting enough “wood on the ball to knock the
ball out of the park†(sorry, baseball is right around the corner).
Precious
metals mining stocks are exceptionally cheap relative to the price of
gold (and silver). Many of the junior exploration stocks have sold
down to historically cheap levels in the latest pullback in the
sector. As such, this is a good opportunity to add to existing
positions in these names or to start a new position.
Posted by AGORACOM
at 12:58 PM on Tuesday, February 11th, 2020
SPONSOR: ZEN Graphene Solutions: An emerging advanced materials and graphene development company with a focus on new solutions using pure graphene and other two-dimensional materials. Our competitive advantage relies on the unique qualities of our multi-decade supply of precursor materials in the Albany Graphite Deposit. Independent labs in Japan, UK, Israel, USA and Canada confirm this. Click here for more information
An international group of Russian and Japanese scientists recently
developed a graphene-based material that might significantly increase
the recording density in data storage devices, such as SSDs and flash
drives. Among the main advantages of the material is the absence of
rewrite limit, which will allow implementing new devices for Big Data
processes.
The development of compact and reliable memory devices is an
increasing need. Today, traditional devices are devices in which
information is transferred through electric current. The simplest
example is a flash card or SSD. At the same time, users inevitably
encounter problems: the file may not be recorded correctly, the computer
may stop “seeing” the flash drive, and to record a large amount of
information, rather massive devices are required.
A promising alternative to electronics is spintronics.
In spintronics, devices operate on the principle of magnetoresistance:
there are three layers, the first and third of which are ferromagnetic,
and the middle one is nonmagnetic. Passing through such a “sandwich”
structure, electrons, depending on their spin, are scattered differently
in the magnetized edge layers, which affects the resulting resistance
of the device.
The control of information using the standard logical bits, 0 and 1,
can be performed by detecting an increase or decrease in this
resistance.
The international group of scientists from National University of
Science and Technology MISIS (Russia) and National Institute for Quantum
and Radiological Science and Technology (Japan) developed a material
that can significantly increase the capacity of magnetic memory by
increasing the recording density. The scientists used a combination of
graphene and the semi-metallic Heusler alloy Co2FeGaGe.
“Japanese colleagues for the first time grew a single-atom layer of
graphene on a layer of semi-metallic ferromagnetic material and measured
its properties. The Japanese team, led by Dr. Seiji Sakai, conducts
unique experiments, while our group is engaged in a theoretical
description of the data obtained. Our teams have been working together
for many years and have obtained a number of important results,”
comments Pavel Sorokin, Sc.D. in Physics and Mathematics, head of the
“Theoretical Materials Science of Nanostructures” infrastructure project
at the NUST MISIS Laboratory of Inorganic Nanomaterials.
Previously, graphene was not used in magnetic memory devices as
carbon atoms reacted with the magnetic layer, which led to changes in
its properties. By careful selection of the Heusler alloy composition,
as well as the methods of its application, it was possible to create a
thinner sample compared to previous analogues. This, in turn, will
significantly increase the capacity of magnetic memory devices without
increasing their physical size.
Next, the scientists plan to scale the experimental sample and modify the structure.
Posted by AGORACOM
at 8:28 AM on Tuesday, February 11th, 2020
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 11, 2020 / VERTICAL EXPLORATION INC. (TSXV:VERT) (“Vertical” or “the Company”) is pleased to provide an update regarding registration of its high-quality St-Onge Wollastonite for use as an approved supplement for both the Canadian agricultural and cannabis/hemp industries.
Vertical and its distribution partner, Wollammo Distribution Inc. (Wollammo), have moved forward to seek registration of Vertical’s St-Onge Wollastonite as a Supplement under the Fertilizer Act established by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). Vertical and Wollammo have engaged Ms. Niki Nickel, Compliance Manager, QA, to help the companies move forward with the registration process in an expedited fashion, given the importance and market appeal that this registration will bring to Vertical and Wollammo.
Ms. Nickel has recently reviewed Wollammo’s compliance data documents and believes the Wollammo product, which consists of 100% St-Onge Wollastonite, meets the criteria for registration as a Supplement under the Canadian Fertilizer Act established by CFIA and the Safe Foods for Canada Act SOR 2018-108. Subsequently, a letter of intent will be filed as soon as possible for Vertical’s Wollastonite in the form of a Pre-Market Application Submission (PASO) at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Wollammo’s compliance data shows that the St-Onge Wollastonite improves soil structure, supports plant growth and improves crop yields which are characteristics defined by CFIA as supplements under the Canadian Fertilizers Act and Regulations. Agriculture Canada Standards have been consolidated into the Safe Foods for Canada Act SOR 2018-108, which also includes related and consequential amendments to Section 88 of the Fertilizer Act and to Section 103 of the CFIA Act. Supplements registered under CFIA are therefore included in the Safe Foods for Canada Act, and can be used for Farm, Lawn and Garden uses.
Ms. Nickel, who has completed registrations in more than 60 Countries and U.S. States (including CFIA registration, REACH, and EPA in the U.S. States) and has also worked with several specialty fertilizer companies to complete label revisions and registration, states that “”I’m excited to help Wollammo move ahead with registration as a supplement with CFIA.”
Peter P. Swistak, President/CEO of Vertical Exploration Inc., commented: “I’m thrilled that, with the strong support of our distribution partner Wollammo, we have been able to move ahead so quickly to seek registration for Vertical’s Wollastonite under both the Agriculture Canada Standards Safe Foods for Canada Act SOR 2018-108 and the Canadian Fertilizer Act established by CFIA. Approval under these important Acts will pave the way for significant market awareness and future sales of our St-Onge Wollastonite, and also help provide verification that the Wollammo Wollastonite product has the highly sought after characteristics that agriculture and cannabis/hemp growers alike are looking for in a premium supplement.”
Vertical will provide a further update as soon as the registration process has been completed.
ABOUT VERTICAL EXPLORATION
Vertical Exploration’s mission is to identify, acquire, and advance high potential mining prospects located in North America for the benefit of its stakeholders. The Company’s flagship St-Onge Wollastonite property is located in the Lac-Saint-Jean area in the Province of Quebec.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Peter P. Swistak, President/CEO
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 4:58 PM on Monday, February 10th, 2020
SPONSOR: New Age Metals Inc.
The company owns one of North America’s largest primary platinum
group metals deposit in Sudbury, Canada. Updated NI 43-101 Mineral
Resource Estimate 2,867,000 PdEq Measured and Indicated Ounces, with an
additional 1,059,000 PdEq Ounces Inferred. Learn More.
Palladium Wave Analysis 10 February, 2019
Palladium reversed from support area
Likely to rise to 2400.00
Palladium recently reversed up from the support zone located between
the key level 2155.00 (low of the previous short-term correction 4),
lower daily Bollinger Band and the 38.2% Fibonacci correction of the
pervious upward impulse 3 from December.
The upward reversal from this support area created the daily Japanese candlesticks reversal pattern Hammer.
Palladium is likely to rise further toward the next resistance level 2400.00 (top of the pervious impulse waves 3 and (i)).
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 2:15 PM on Monday, February 10th, 2020
SPONSOR: Datametrex AI Limited
(TSX-V: DM) A revenue generating small cap A.I. company that NATO and
Canadian Defence are using to fight fake news & social media
threats. The company announced three $1M contacts in Q3-2019. Click here for more info.
Jigsaw’s work requires forecasting the most urgent threats facing the
internet, and wherever we traveled these past years — from Macedonia to
Eastern Ukraine to the Philippines to Kenya and the United States — we
observed an evolution in how disinformation was being used to manipulate
elections, wage war, and disrupt civil society. By disinformation we
mean more than fake news. Disinformation today entails sophisticated,
targeted influence campaigns, often launched by governments, with the
goal of influencing societal, economic, and military events around the
world. But as the tactics of disinformation were evolving, so too were
the technologies used to detect and ultimately stop disinformation.
Using technology to detect manipulated images
Beginning in 2016 we began working with researchers and academics to
develop new methods for using technology to detect certain aspects of
disinformation campaigns. Together with Google Research and academic partners, we developed an experimental platform called Assembler to test how technology can help fact-checkers and journalists identify and analyze manipulated media.
Debunking images is a time consuming and error-prone process for
fact-checkers and journalists. To verify the authenticity of images,
they rely on a number of different tools and methods. For example,
Bellingcat, a group of researchers and investigative journalists
dedicated to in-depth fact-checking, lists more than 25 different
tools and services available to verify the authenticity of photos,
videos, websites, and other media. Fact-checkers and journalists need a
way to stay ahead of the latest manipulation techniques and make it
easier to check the authenticity of images and other assets.
Assembler brings together multiple image manipulation detectors from
various academics into one tool, each one designed to spot specific
types of image manipulations. Individually, these detectors can identify
very specific types of manipulation — such as copy-paste or
manipulations to image brightness. Assembled together, they begin to
create a comprehensive assessment of whether an image has been
manipulated in any way. Experts from the University of Maryland,
University Federico II of Naples, and the University of California,
Berkeley each contributed detection models. Assembler uses these models
to show the probability of manipulation on an image.
Additionally, we built two new detectors to test on the platform.The
first is the StyleGAN detector to specifically address deepfakes. This
detector uses machine learning to differentiate between images of real
people from deepfake images produced by the StyleGAN deepfake
architecture. Our second model, the ensemble model, is trained using
combined signals from each of the individual detectors, allowing it to
analyze an image for multiple types of manipulation simultaneously.
Because the ensemble model can identify multiple image manipulation
types, the results are, on average, more accurate than any individual
detector.
“These days working in multimedia forensics is extremely stimulating.
On one hand, I perceive very clearly the social importance of this
work: in the wrong hands, media manipulation tools can be very
dangerous, they can be used to ruin the life and reputation of ordinary
people, commit frauds, modify the course of elections,†said Dr. Luisa
Verdoliva, Associate Professor at the Department of Industrial
Engineering at the University Federico II of Naples and Visiting
Scholar, Google AI. “On the other hand, the professional challenge is
very exciting, new attacks based on artificial intelligence are
conceived by day, and we must keep a very fast pace of innovation to
face them. Collaborating in Assembler was a great opportunity to put my
knowledge and my skills concretely to the service of people. In addition
I came to know wonderful and very diverse people involved in this
project, all strongly committed in this fight. Overall a great
experience.â€
The Current: Exposing the architecture of disinformation campaigns
Jigsaw is an interdisciplinary team of researchers, engineers,
designers, policy experts, and creative thinkers, and we’ve long wanted
to find a way to share more of our team’s work publicly, especially our
research insights. That’s why I’m excited to introduce the first issue
of The Current, Jigsaw’s new research publication that illuminates complex problems through an interdisciplinary approach — like our team.
Our first issue is, as you might have guessed, all about
disinformation — exploring the architecture of disinformation campaigns,
the tactics and technology used, and how new technology is being used
to detect and stop disinformation campaigns.
One feature of this inaugural issue is the Disinformation Data Visualizer. Jigsaw visualized the research from the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab on
coordinated disinformation campaigns around the world and shows the
specific tactics used and countries affected. The Visualizer is a work
in progress. We’re sharing this with the wider community to enable a
dialogue about the most effective and comprehensive disinformation
countermeasures.
An ongoing experiment
Disinformation is a complex problem, and there isn’t any simple
technological solution. The first step is to better understand the
issue. The world ought to understand how disinformation campaigns are
increasingly being used as a way of manipulating people’s perception of
important issues. We’re committed to sharing our insights and publishing
our research so other organizations can examine and scrutinize
different ways to approach this issue. We’ll be sharing more updates
about Jigsaw’s work in this space over the coming few months.
In the meantime we’d like to express our gratitude to our academic
partners, our partners within Google, and the courageous publishers and
journalists who are committed to using technology to bring people the
truth, wherever it leads: Chris Bregler, Larry Davis, Alexei Efros, Hany
Farid, Andrew Owens, Abhinav Shrivastava, Luisa Verdoliva, and Emerson
Brookings, Graham Brookie and the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab team.
Lomiko Metals Outlines 2020 Project Plan for La Loutre Flake Graphite Property in Quebec
(Vancouver, British-Columbia and Montreal, Quebec) February 5, 2020 –
Lomiko Metals Inc. (TSX-V: LMR, OTC: LMRMF, FSE: DH8C) (Lomiko or the
“Companyâ€) is pleased to announce plans to move forward with assessment
and development of the La Loutre Property for 2020. The goals are as
follows:
1) Complete 100% Acquisition of the Property 2) Complete Metallurgy and Graphite Characterization 3) Complete a Technical Report in accordance with NI 43-101 Guidelines
A “technical report” means a report prepared and filed in accordance
with this Instrument and Form 43-101F1 Technical Report that includes,
in summary form, all material scientific and technical information in
respect of the subject property as of the effective date of the
technical report;
4) Complete Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) compliant with NI 43-101 Guidelines
PEA means a study, other than a pre-feasibility or feasibility study,
that includes an economic analysis of the potential viability of mineral
resources;
Further details regarding the plan will be released when consultants are assigned for each task.
Results from Drilling Program
Results from the 2019 program (see Table 1 below, and Figure 1) at the
Refractory Zone of the La Loutre graphite project (the “Projectâ€)
indicate considerable promise. A total of 21 holes were completed in
2019 on the Refractory Zone for a total of 2,985 metres. The Project is
owned by Lomiko (80%) and Quebec Precious Metals Corporation (20%).
The above-noted 2016 mineral resource does
not include the current results or the significant intercepts from the
Refractory Zone in 2016 which were as follows:
LL-16-01 – 7.74% Cg over 135.60 m including 16.81% Cg over 44.10 m LL-16-02 – 17.08% Cg over 22.30 m and 14.80% Cg over 15.10 m LL-16-03 – 14.56% Cg over 110.80 m
The next task is to complete a new resource estimate in compliance with NI 43-101 for the entire Project since the above-mentioned 2016 resource estimate including the 2016 and 2019 drilling at the Refractory Zone.
Posted by AGORACOM
at 4:55 PM on Friday, February 7th, 2020
SPONSOR: ZEN Graphene Solutions: An emerging advanced materials and graphene development company with a focus on new solutions using pure graphene and other two-dimensional materials. Our competitive advantage relies on the unique qualities of our multi-decade supply of precursor materials in the Albany Graphite Deposit. Independent labs in Japan, UK, Israel, USA and Canada confirm this. Click here for more information
“This company has the very rare graphite deposit in Ontario –
as it is able to transform or exfoliate into graphene products easier
than other graphites around the world”
“The goal of the facility is to start producing some of these
nanomaterials – graphene, graphene oxide, and graphene quantum dots.”
“These materials at the research level have a lot of excitement around
them. They also come at a very high price.”
ZEN is an emerging graphene technology solutions company with a focus
on the development of graphene-based nanomaterial products and
applications. The unique Albany Graphite Project provides the company
with a potential competitive advantage in the graphene market as
independent labs in Japan, UK, Israel, USA and Canada have independently
demonstrated that ZEN’s Albany PureTM Graphite is an ideal precursor
material which easily converts (exfoliates) to graphene, using a variety
of mechanical, chemical and electrochemical methods.
Posted by AGORACOM
at 3:00 PM on Friday, February 7th, 2020
SPONSOR: New Age Metals Inc. The company owns one of North America’s largest primary platinum group metals deposit in Sudbury, Canada. Updated NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate 2,867,000 PdEq Measured and Indicated Ounces, with an additional 1,059,000 PdEq Ounces Inferred. Learn More.
Summary
The palladium market will remain tight and pressure prices higher.
Sibanye Gold with the Stillwater Mine has plunged back into SA.
The Aberdene palladium ETF and Canadian palladium juniors are the best proxies.
Palladium has been the best performing commodity in the past two
years or so, jumping over 100% and there is more to go. This palladium
bull market is much different than the last one. The bull market from
1997 to 2000 was about 3 years and then palladium dropped giving up most
of the gains in less than a year. There was a nice bump up from the
2008 crisis and then the price traded sideways for several years. The
price bottomed at the end of 2015 with the severe bear market in
precious metals. Since then, the price has been going steadily higher
with a major break out in 2016. This bull market is not going to end
anytime soon for the reasons below.
Palladium is mostly used in the auto industry for pollution control
with catalytic converters. Electric vehicles will be a long time coming
to replace any significant amount of gasoline/diesel driven vehicles.
Meanwhile, pollution standards are being tightened that will keep demand
high. China has been gobbling up palladium since their China 5
pollution standards took effect in 2013. China 6 will now be coming into effect that will increase loads per vehicle of palladium. Many analysts have been commenting that China has been secretly stock piling the metal and is driving prices.
Palladium demand by Sector
There is no doubt the demand will remain strong, but the real
story is on the supply side. This next graphic illustrates the supply
deficit since 2016.
It is obvious to expect an increased demand from China as pollution regulations are tightened with ‘China 6’.
This next graphic of global mine production is very important because of the palladium supply is in a very unstable region.
The Russian supply from Norilsk Nickel has always been quite stable
and is of no concern, but as investors, we cannot participate there.
South Africa is the other big producer and that country is becoming very
unstable and more worrisome, that is where most of the future reserves
are.
The world’s largest PMG reserves are in South Africa, precisely in
the Bushveld Complex (in the central-Northern part of the country) which
alone accounts for about 50% of the world’s palladium resources, but,
overall, South Africa has reserves of 63 million kilograms which
represent over 91% of the worldwide availability.
South African (SA) mines have always been plagued with labour issues,
strikes, and high costs. To make matters worse, the country is now
facing an energy crisis with rolling blackouts shutting down mines. The country will probably become much more unstable, with unemployment hitting 10-year highs.
Half of their youth are unemployed and the company that provides 95% of
the electricity (when it can) is reporting record financial losses.
This is a country teetering on the brink of chaos that will likely be
very disruptive to PGM mine supply. I am avoiding palladium and platinum investments there.
With all the issues in SA, Sibanye Gold (SBGL)
began diversifying out of the country and acquired the Stillwater PGM
mine in the US. That use to be my favourite stock to play palladium bull
markets. However, they jumped right back into the fray, acquiring
Lonmin in 2019, a struggling SA, PGM producer. They promptly cut 5,000
jobs at the mine and it now appears Sibanye is moving more into PGMs
from gold. According to what was released in the acquisition news,
Sibanye PGM production will increase from around 1.7M ounces per year
to 2.8M ounces/year. This compares to about 600,000 ounces/year at the
US Stillwater complex plus about 700,000 ounces produced through the
recycling unit, noted from the 2018 annual report.
SA PGM production was 627,991 ounces (this will increase significantly with Lonmin acquisition)
SA gold production was 344,752 ounces (this amount is well below normal because of mine strike)
US PGM production was 284,773 ounces
US PGM recycling was 421,450 ounces
The stock has done well with the rising palladium price, but at these
stock prices and the move back to SA, it has become too risky. I would
suggest selling at these prices.
To highlight risks further, the Q1 2019 financial report highlights a -63% decline in SA gold production in Q1 2019 compared to Q1 201 because of the labour strike. This news out on February 2nd
states that 19 attacks on SA gold facilities nearly doubled from last
year. On December 15, 2019, attackers took hostages and plundered the
smelting plant at Gold Fields Ltd.‘s South Deep mine. “Mining companies are being attacked by thugs and armed gangs and there is a lack of police response,” said Neal Froneman, CEO of Sibanye Gold Ltd., which repelled an attack on its Cooke mine two weeks ago. “It eventually has a knock-on impact into society, it’s lawlessness, it’s anarchy.”
There is the Aberdeen Standard Physical Palladium ETF Trust (PALL).
The investment objective of the Trust is for the Shares to reflect the
performance of the price of palladium, less the expenses of the Trust’s
operations. The ETF Trust physically holds palladium in JPMorgan vaults
in London and Zurich. PALL tracks the movements in palladium spot prices
fairly well and is the best direct exposure to palladium. Aberdeen
purchased the fund effective October 1, 2018, from ETF Securities. The
Aberdeen website is terrible, it just diverts you to something else they
are trying to sell. You can find some more info at etf.com.
One disadvantage, as a Trust it will often trade at a discount to NAV, so short term may not always reflect palladium movements precisely.
The chart of PALL reveals quite a jump in volume on the last rally. I
do not find this alarming, but shows it is really the first time the
palladium market has caught retail interest.
If we compare to the short-term chart on palladium below, it is easy
to see that PALL has tracked the palladium price very well. After a
needed correction, the price jumped higher on Monday. This is probably a
start to the next rally.
There is also Sprott Physical Platinum and Palladium Trust (SPPP), but it is split 50/50 between the two metals.
Canada is the third-largest producing country, so an obvious place to
look. A lot of the palladium production comes from major miners in the
Sudbury nickel/copper complex as a byproduct. Obviously, this is a good
area to look and there was an excellent proxy for investors called North
American Palladium that was operating the Lac Des Isles palladium mine.
Unfortunately, for us, investors, it was bought out last year by SA producer Implats.
The area had a number of discoveries back in the last bull market
around the year 2000, and I visited a number of those projects back
then. I believe the best one in this area is Canadian Palladium that acquired the East Bull project last year. There is also Palladium One that is not Canada but not in SA either.
Palladium One Mining (OTC:NKORF) – PGM project is in Finland.
Shares outstanding 111 million, 185 million fully diluted
Their LK project is located in north-central Finland, approximately
40 km north of the company’s exploration office in the town of
Taivalkoski. The property is 160 km (by road) east-southeast of
Rovaniemi and 190 km northeast of the port city of Oulu. Finland is a
very stable jurisdiction and has a viable mining sector.
The company is run by CEO/President, Derrick Weyrauch, CPA, CA who is
an experienced mining executive and corporate director. Mr. Weyrauch’s
background includes finance, risk management, corporate restructuring
and turnarounds, coupled with M&A strategy development, execution
and post transaction integration. He is the co-founder of Magna Mining
Corp. and is a former corporate director of a number of companies
including Eco Oro Minerals Corp., Jaguar Mining Inc., and Banro Corp.
and is a former CFO of Jaguar Mining Inc. and Andina Minerals Inc.
Currently, he is a non-executive director and at Cabral Gold Inc.
The LK Project is 100% owned by Palladium One Mining Inc.
Palladium One released a mineral resource estimate for the Kaukua deposit within the 100-per-cent-owned Lantinen Koillismaa (LK) project.
Highlights:
An optimized pit-constrained mineral resource, at a 0.3-g/t palladium cut-off;
635,600 PdEq (palladium equivalent) ounces of indicated resources grading 1.80 g/t PdEq contained in 11 million tonnes;
525,800 PdEq ounces of inferred resources grading 1.50 g/t PdEq contained in 11 million tonnes.
Significant potential exists to expand the historic Haukiaho
deposit along strike both to the east and west. For example, 1960s-era
historic drilling by Outokumpu about two km east of the historic 2013
Haukiaho inferred resource returned up to 36.36 m grading 0.20 per cent
Cu and 0.19 per cent Ni from 1.64 m to 38.00 m downhole in hole R692 (no
PGE analysis was conducted). Reconnaissance prospecting by Palladium
One in the vicinity of this historic drill hole returned up to 0.51 per
cent Cu, 0.33 per cent Ni, 0.19 g/t Pt, 0.56 g/t Pd and 0.21 g/t Au
(0.96 g/t PGE) (see press release dated Aug. 12, 2019). Palladium one
recently applied for the Haukiaho East reservation (see press release
date Sept. 5, 2019), which, if approved, the company would control about
24 km of the favourable Haukiaho basal contact.”
The company plans to conduct
a 75-line-kilometre induced polarization (IP) geophysical program,
along with a diamond drilling program of up to 5,000 metres, at the LK
project. Both drilling and geophysics contractor are expected to be
mandated soon.
The Tyko Ni-Cu-PGE project, i65km northeast of Marathon Ontario, Canada.
The Tyko project is an early stage, high sulphide tenor, nickel
focused project with recent drill hole intercepts returning up to 1.06 Ni over 6.22 m including 4.71% Ni over 0.87m in hole TK-16-010 (see press release dated June 8, 2016). On January 21, 2019, Palladium One reported prospecting samples with assay results of up to 0.74% Ni, 4.09% Cu, and 2.51g/t PGE
on the Tyko Nickel-Copper-PGE Property. This project has some
palladium, but if it is developed to a resource, it will be more like
the Sudbury copper and nickel mines with PGMs as a byproduct.
The company is well financed, closing a C$3,786,180 private placement
at C$0.06 per unit issuing 63,102,999 units. Eric Sprott took down
20,000,000 units. While funding is required, this is quite a bit of
dilution.
Currently, the stock is priced around $0.18 so all the warrants and
options are well in the money. So is appropriate to use the fully
diluted shares outstanding for valuation.
Market cap – $20 million. Market cap fully diluted Cdn $33.3 million
Subtracting $3.8 million financing from the market cap, it values
their 635,600 PdEq indicated resource at C$25 per ounce and fully
diluted at C$46 per ounce. This is a quite low valuation.
The stock mostly trades on the TSXV symbol (PDM), so I used the C$
chart. Support is around 16 cents and 12.5 cents. If 16 cents holds, the
stock could begin a leg higher.
Canadian Palladium
Shares outstanding 100.3 million approx.
All warrants and options are at 30 cents and higher.
What I consider one of the most important highlights is the company
is run by Wayne Tisdale. In the last 10 years, he has advanced three
juniors and sold them for large profits for their shareholders. He
helped start and finance the Rainy River project which was sold to NewGold in 2013 for $310 million. He developed US Cobalt and, in 2018, sold it to First Cobalt in a transaction worth $150 million to his shareholders’ delight. Going back further, he helped finance oil & gas company Ryland Oil that was bought out by Crescent Point in 2010 for a $121.8 million
valuation. Mr. Tisdale has a keen eye to find projects that can quickly
be advanced further to make them prime acquisition targets. Canadian
Palladium only has a market value now of about C$20 million, and I have
little doubt that Mr. Tisdale is going to do it again with Canadian Palladium.
Highlights:
Company run by Wayne Tisdale
Low market valuation – C$31 per ounce
East Bull with 43-101, 523,000 inferred palladium equivalent resource
East Bull can open to depth and along strike
Widely spaced drilling only needs infill drilling to upgrade and expand resource
Close to Sudbury complex where ore can be processed
Projects – East Bull, Ontario Canada
East Bull was drilled by Freewest and Mustang Minerals back in the
2000 era and now has a 43-101, 523,000 ounces inferred palladium
equivalent resource. A private company, Pavey Ark Minerals had the
property and in 2017 they twinned old drill holes and completed the work
to bring the project to 43-101 standards. Canadian Palladium (formerly
21C Metals) acquired a 100% option on the project last February.
This graphic from their presentation is a good summary and shows the location
In the 1999, 2000 period, Freewest drilled 27 holes for a total of
2,902 meters and carried out extensive surface trenching. Work by
Mustang on the eastern part of the Property (claim 1227910) included 11
drill holes for a total of 1,766 meters. The work by Freewest and
Mustang forms the majority of the data for the current resource
estimate. Additionally, Pavey Ark reviewed and re-sampled drill core
from the 27 BQ and NQ holes from the Freewest drilling program. Pavey
Ark’s exploration results in 2017 included;
hole EB17-01 that intersected 12.0 m at 2.87 g/t PGM+Au, 0.23% Cu and 0.13% Ni and
hole EB17-03 that intersected 7.0 m of 3.21 g/t PGM+Au, 0.16% Cu and 0.07% Ni.
(Note: Au = gold, Cu = copper, and Ni = nickel.)
In 2019, BULL completed their initial exploration program at East Bull and reported results Sept. 17, 2019.
These are highlights from the first sampling program on the East Bull
palladium project and field program on the Agnew Lake project:
Seventy-three grab samples were selected to help identify the
palladium-bearing rock types of the mineralized trend. Grab samples are
used to determine the presence mineralization and may not be indicative
of the overall grade of the zone
Sampling successfully defined locations for channel sampling and the
higher grades could indicate potential zones within the mineralized
zone for higher-grade starter pits
Range of palladium assay sample results were 37 samples below 0.1
g/t palladium, 17 between 0.1 and 0.5 g/t with 14 above 1 g/t. Nine of
these ran between 2 and 6.5 g/t
Geological mapping and review of the Freewest diamond drilling in
2000, indicates the northeast-trending faults are composed of multiple
intrusions of mafic to diabase dikes. Left lateral movement on the dikes
is measured to be up to 100 metres
This graphic gives a good snapshot of the current resource and
expansion potential. Mineralization starts at surface and the system
appears to be about 30 meters wide. This would be an open-pit operation.
Agnew Lake property
It is located 80 kms. west of Sudbury, Ont., home of Glencore and
Vale’s Canadian nickel-copper-platinum-group-elements mining and
smelting operations. The Agnew Lake property comprises over 260 claims
(about 6,000 hectares) and is part of the larger East Bull Lake-Agnew
Lake mafic-ultramafic complex.
The Agnew Lake magmas have major element compositions that are very
similar to the model parent liquids proposed for the mafic portions of
the Stillwater and Bushveld complexes. The Agnew intrusion and the East
Bull Lake intrusion are also considered to host significant PGE-Cu-Ni
mineralization in marginal rock units (Peck & James, 1990; Peck et
al., 1993a, 1993b, 1995; Vogel et al., 1997).
Financial/Summary
Last financial statements show just over $400,000 cash. The company
just closed a $4 million financing at 12 cents per share. Eric Sprott
bought 12.5 million shares of that financing.
Wayne Tisdale has been successful in financing and increasing the
value of properties and dealing them off for large profits. I believe he
will do it again and also has a loyal following of shareholders from
his past success. BULL just acquired the property last year and there
has been little exploration and no drilling so it has been under the
radar until the recent financing. The discovery is on the surface, so
will be cheap to mine and is close to the Sudbury complex where refiners
can recover PGMs. There is a couple other palladium exploration plays
in Canada, but they are mostly old stale stories and I believe none have
the short-term potential that the East Bull project has.
The current market cap is $20.1 Million less the $4 million financing
gives an enterprise value of C$31 per ounce on their 523,000-ounce
Pd-eq inferred resource. Part of the reason for the low value is the
resource is only inferred. If drilling success starts to prove larger
potential and the resource moves up to the measured and indicated
category it could easily increase the value potential.
Only exploration news last year was sample results that came out last
September just when the junior market started heading south. The stock
made a decent move higher than just drifted lower until a typical
year-end bottom. The stock took off when it hit 12 cents on good volume.
This is when they began marketing a financing that was way
oversubscribed in one day. Probably spill over buying drove the stock up
to the 23-cent level. The stock then came back to support around 16
cents and bounced off higher. Drill news will likely cause the next move
higher with the old highs around 27 cents last year as the first major
resistance.
Conclusion
A recent update on palladium by TD Securities
highlights tightening emission controls and South Africa as I have, but
most interesting is the lack of speculative trading positions. TD
comments positions held by traders are below average. This rally has
room to move and if excessive speculation builds it could go way higher.
Regardless of whether palladium is $1,200 or $2,400 per ounce,
palladium discoveries and deposits will be worth premium valuations,
especially in stable jurisdictions. The potential for discoveries in
South Africa is very good but the political risks are rising. Ivanhoe
Mines (OTCQX:IVPAF), Eastplats, and Platinum Group Metals (PLG)
have projects in SA, and if I had to pick one there, it would be
Platinum Group Metals because they have the most leverage to platinum
and palladium prices.
The best direct related investment to palladium is the PALL ETF, but
it does not offer any leverage. There are not any 2 times or 3 times
palladium ETFs. This leaves the best leverage to junior palladium
companies and there are few. I prefer those outside of SA like Canadian
Palladium and Palladium One. I prefer Canadian Palladium because of the
CEO’s track record, their resource is on surface, near PGM smelters and
likely cheaper exploration costs in Canada vs Finland. For
diversification, owning more than one palladium play is not a bad idea.
Disclosure: I am/we are long DCNNF. I wrote
this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not
receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no
business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this
article.
Additional disclosure: Canadian Palladium is a paid advertiser at affiliate playstocks.net
