Shipper’s Spiky Highs | Graphite Win For Québec | Alaska Thruster

Also: Contango Ore | Osino Resources | Banyan Gold | NMG Graphite
[Monday Feb. 19, 2024, is a market holiday.]
Plus see: Our subscriber Mike McKone's travel 
through several New Zealand abandoned mines.
Here please.

Osino’s CEO, Heye Daun in Namibia, says Friday: 

DPM came out with results ($227 million of ‘free’ cash flow) and ​its announcement of ​a sales process for ​the Tsumeb smelter. One of the reasons ​DPM traded down when they announced the Osino deal was that investors interpreted that as DPM staying committed to the smelter (no sale) ​– which is not what investors want.​”

Nouveau Monde Graphite

Our Québec graphite developer got a cash shot ($87.5 million) in the treasury from big buyers. The shares NMG on NYSE are up 51% in two days.

 

This company remark from Nouveau Monde Graphite NMG says it all (see company statement please): 

 

Nouveau Monde Graphite
Éric Desaulniers has been developing the Matawinie and St. Lawrence River graphite miner and processor for 10 years, at least. I first saw Matawinie 8 years ago, I recall. And once again after that.

 

At Matawinie: Eric Desaulniers, far left; Danny Gravelle; the author; the team: Oct. 2016
I have not seen the material plant in the works at Bécancour, Québec, 150 km northeast of Montréal, on the Saint Lawrence River.
The province is going all out for industrial metals of late: lithium, graphite, nickel, copper (Friday saw an almost 2% rebound in the copper price), and (perhaps) uranium.

 

Québec is spending government money and boosting corporate partnerships, and is assisting with take-off mineral pacts by largely Asia manufacturers. 

 

Graphite, a battery metal and an ingredient in lubricants, electric motor brushes, even nuclear plant cores, among other uses, comes in many flake sizes, grades and requires grooming at specialized material plants.

 

Eric tells me today, “Panasonic 18,000 tons per year and for GM 18,000 and that equals 36,000 TPY of revenue for everyone, including (First Nation) Atikamekw.”

 

DHT Maritime
We are fortunate still to own all of our DHT Maritime Holdings DHT-NYSE, a very large crude oil (and LNG I believe) carrier across Europe and the Middle East.

 

F​riday: fresh highs hit as shares of the European shipping-co at $1​1.​90 USD touch their richest price since March 2023. DHT shares are spiky (sharp daily moves). See the one-day chart here please.

DHT trading today — highs and lows
I would not chase DHT shares — what with the Red Sea Houthi drone attacks roiling not just the waters of shipping lanes but the stock, too​, yet still sending lease rates far higher​.

 

The Bermuda-based shipper (with offices in Monaco, Singapore, Oslo) just turned in a solid quarter of  shipping profits and a 22-cent quarterly dividend.
Our  Greece shipping aficionado, Avraam Gabrielidis, got me into DHT. 

Nutshell, Avraam says,

For me the very positive news comes at page 3 of the results. ‘Thus far in the first quarter of 2024, 78% of the available VLCC spotdays have been booked at an average rateof $55,900 per day on a discharge-to-discharge basis. 83% of theavailable VLCC days, combined spot and time charter days, have beenbooked at an average rate of $50,800 per day.‘” 

I am holding our approx. $24,000 USD worth, which has risen approx. 75% in 18 or so months. 

A​vraam says Friday from Greece, 

“Today I sold 20% of my position of DHT at 11.80 to increase my liquidity. On the other hand ,spot rates in the VLCC sector are doing great ($70,000-77,000 USD per day).” 

Some 18 months of TCR coverage of the shipper, recently this:

https://thomcalandra.com/trading-catapult-triggers-for-shipper-gold-copper-uranium-cos/

Also this: https://thomcalandra.com/uraniums-dynamics-laid-out/

Note

Uranium’s price streak ​(spot price in chart) is​  ​pausing this week​ — a few dollars near its highs. See previous coverage please.

Please see the Baselode Energy tag in this, please.FINDisfor those seeking speculative uranium explorers. 

Trading: I bought more Xtra-Gold Resources this past week XTG to replace shares I sold in a secondary account; I added also to my Ivanhoe Electric IE.

I am seeking (dependent on free capital, as always) to add to my Banyan Gold BYN BYAGF. Banyan is trying to spread the word after several months of laying low in marketing fields. “We are trying to use our cash for de-risking our deposits,” Tara Christie says to me.

This pitch is a new one, just out this week, and in a video format I think works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JILzIO0EF7E.

Banyan Gold

Speaking of, Banyan Gold is one of the Yukon developers that will get absorbed by a larger neighbor in the province or perhaps in Alaska. Tara, CEO, won’t let that happen until it sees a robust reckoning that fairly values BYN’s market valuation and 7 million ounce resource.

Right now, BYN BYAGF’s valuation is anything but fair and why we have the term W-BFV, or WAY-BELOW FAIR VALUE.

Etc: I am looking for sale candidates in the portfolio(s) here at home to lighten the number of individual equities. Banyan is an accumulation target and has been that for three-plus years.

Manh Choh in Alaska
Rick van Nieuwenhuyse, at right, with mine  superintendent Keith Miles at Contango‘s Lucky Shot gold project/mine

Contango Ore: CTGO (NYSE):  I believe CTGO poses to shareholders a cash-flow thruster for the Alaska gold mine developer (with Fort Knox-operator partner Kinross Gold KGC). Investors largely are cold-shouldering the looming cash booster.

TCRs, I added this below after reviewing material about Contango Ore CTGO, whose NYSE shares are hard hit this month and in January and December 2023.  

First off, please see this piece by North of 60 Mining News owner-editor Shane Lasley, whom I spent time with on the ground at Contango Ore outside of Anchorage. See article.

Depressing CTGO shares this year and late in 2023 are probably the region’s resident groups who question the safety of hauling ore to the Manh Choh joint venture.

Shane’s article is entirely independent and reinforces on-the record comments from Kinross Gold and from Contango.

Kinross Gold cutout for Manh Choh joint venture (70% KGC, 30% CTGO) Click to enlarge please.

As stated several times here, ore is being trucked from Manh Choh some 250 miles by road to Fort Knox. 

The North of 60 article states,

The ore is an order of magnitude higher grade than what was fed through the Kinross Alaska mill last year.

Manh Choh hosts approimately 4 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 7.6 g/t (1 million oz) gold and 13.5 g/t (1.8 million oz) silver.

“We look forward to first production from Manh Choh in the second half of the year,” says  Kinross Gold CEO Paul Rollinson in a public statement. Kinross says transportation of ore to Fort Knox will “gradually increase throughout the first half of the year.”

The Kinross Q4 release and footnotes of Feb. 15, 2024, are worth a 3-minute scan.

For one, I had forgotten that Manh Choh added 698,000 ounces to reserve estimates after the project feasibility study in July 2022.

I asked Contango CEO Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse today if CTGO will see “meaningful cash flow” from the venture starting this summer of 2024; he responds this weekend, “Should be.” Rick had been leaning toward a timeline that was a month or two sooner, as I recall.

The shares at $160 million, approximately $16.50 apiece, look to be 20% to 25% below fair value based on internally projected yearly cash flow that could begin to run at a $50 million or greater pace for Contango. I own CTGO — some and am adding more in the coming week (9 million shares outstanding and 5 million ‘public float’).

Some 24 months or so ago, those shares, now worth $9,000 USD, were worth almost twice that. Since then, I have bought and sold at profits; what I have now is worth about $5,000. I have seen Lucky Shot, Contango’s exploration project and also in Alaska.

Please see previous The Calandra Report coverage of CTGO since 2022, including this recently and online at thomcalandra,com.

Spot uranium prices via UxC. Click for larger image.

PDAC: the annual Toronto metals investors, prospectors and developers conference arrives in 2 weeks.

Thank you to Naomi Nemeth of Lavras Gold and  Maureen Owens at PDAC for getting me into the Investor Forum mix for a second year.

The forum runs all day on the opening day, Sunday March 3.

My panel’s details: 

Investment Leaders Forum: March 3 3:35 p.m.

Hall E, on the Investors Exchange show floor, 800 level.

Kai Hoffman of Frankfurt, an investor, speaker and conference organizer, is moderating the panel.

Panel titleThe global economy vs. the resource sector: Finding a win-win situation

I hope some of our TCRs can make it. Matt Geiger, trusted source and SF fund manager (MJG Capital), is also on a panel there in the morning.

— Thom Calandra


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Thom Calandra is a writer and an investor. Research and material are meant as editorial opinion. He is not a professional investment adviser. Please do not consider his reporting as a recommendation to buy or sell securities.

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