Monday, February 11, 2019

Savannah Resources Review of 2018.


Savannah Resources Review of 2018.
Or
Trials and Tribulations of a Troublesome Teenage Genius

I’ve been meaning to write this for a little while now, as I’ve said infinitum Savannah Resources is a jewel in the cesspit of AIM. Its projects are on the whole exceptional and its management team highly experienced and successful.

However its far to say that 2018 has been a troublesome year for Savannah, its reached new highs, raised sums of money at levels that are envied by most companies. It’s created alliances and expanded its team. It’s advanced projects and done considerable work to add value. Despite all of this, the share price is currently lower than at this time last year. In my mind of normalising a company’s characteristics, it seems to resemble a “Teenage Genius” that has had a troubling year.  It’s been affected by the bad behaviour of those around it, notably the tribulations of the Lithium Market over the past 6 months and the declining fortunes of its peers. Also weighing heavily on Savannah are the trials of Oman.

This review will hopefully put 2018 in to some perspective and shine a light on what to expect in 2019.

Mutamba Mineral Sands Project, Mozambique

Savannah has a Consortium Agreement with Rio Tinto, which became operative in October 2016, to define a potential dry mining operation for staged, early development in a world-class province in Mozambique…Savannah is the operator of the Project and may earn up to a 51% interest in the combined project as it moves towards production through scoping, pre-feasibility and feasibility studies….The global Mineral Resource estimate for the Mutamba project (Jangamo, Dongane and Ravene) currently stands at 4.4Bt at 3.9%total heavy minerals ("THM") comprising both indicated and inferred category material and containing ilmenite, rutile and zircon This includes a high-grade portion of 92Mt at 6.2% THM, which was defined at Ravene. Importantly, significant potential remains to expand the resource beyond its current boundaries, which will be the focus of future prospecting activities.
·     Targeting first production in 2020 with average annual production of 456,000t of ilmenite and 118,000t of non-magnetic concentrate

·          US$4.23 billion LOM revenue forecast based on Management Case Two (base case revenue of US$3.53 billion forecast)

·         Pre-production capital expenditure of US$152 million plus US$74 million of contingency, EPCM (Engineering, Procurement, Construction Management) and spares, with identified opportunities that may reduce capital expenditure (based on conceptual estimate +/-35%)
Rio Tinto will be providing all its existing camp, facilities and associated equipment, and the Consortium Agreement includes an offtake agreement on commercial terms for the sale of 100% of production to Rio Tinto (or an affiliate).”


Block 4 and 5 Copper Projects, Oman

“Savannah has rights to two blocks covering 1,004km² in the copper-rich, Semail Ophiolite Belt in the Sultanate of Oman, a region proven to host clusters of moderate to high-grade copper deposits with gold credits..The Company’s strategy is centred on building a copper and gold resource inventory to support high margin, low cost operations and establish Savannah as a commercial producer, with mining expected to commence in 2018…Block 5 has a current Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 1.7Mt at 2.2% copper ('Cu'), including a high-grade zone of 0.5Mt at 4.5% Cu, which was defined at the Mahab 4 target. This resource has been delineated at the Mahab 4 (1.51Mt at a grade of 2.1% copper for 31,500t of contained copper) and Maqail South (0.16Mt at a grade of 3.8% copper) deposits..  This has led to the projection of an Additional Resource Target between 10,700,000t and 29,250,000t grading at between 1.4%/t and 2.4%/t copper with additional gold credits.*”


Mina do Barroso, Portugal

“Savannah acquired a 75% interest in the Mina do Barroso Lithium Project in northern Portugal is Western Europe’s largest new spodumene lithium discovery….a highly strategic opportunity to become the first significant lithium producer in Europe. With a granted Mining Lease (valid until 2036, extendable for 20 years), a 20Mt Mineral Resource which has the potential to increase further, robust project economics, established infrastructure, and preliminary metallurgical test work indicating that a high-grade (over 6% Li2O), clean, low iron spodumene concentrate can be produced.
The project has a current Mineral Resource of 20.1Mt at 1.04% Li₂O for 209,000t of contained Li₂O. Of this, 16.4Mt at 1.04% Li₂O for a total contained Li₂O of 171,400t has been defined at the Grandao deposit, with ~90% now reported at the higher confidence Measured and Indicated category, which represents the first 4-5 years of the mining inventory.”

2018 (imagine this scrolling like a starwars movie intro……)
We start the 2018 story in an all too familiar way for junior miners.
The Mozambique PFS has been initiated but will take many months.
Oman is awaiting magical signatures for its mining license.
Portugal is still new, young and very much unproved….
New Investors are sought amongst the stars…..


The year of 2018

Savannah started the year in quite a dull way, the share price hovered around 6p, falling to 5.2p during the second half of April. During this period the mining Licenses for Mozambique were submitted in January. The most significant activity during the first quarter was around the Barroso Lithium project, a 200% increase in the mineral estimate to 9.1m tonnes which led to the kicking off of the initial scoping study for the project. 200% far exceeded most estimates from the limited drilling that took place and brought the project very close to the 10m tonne target it thought it needed in order to prove profitable and attractive.
A small fund raising took place at 5.5p to enable the company to meet its auditor requirements, as always with most Savannah fundraisers the placing shares went predominantly to long term holders.
Of the 8 signatures needed for the two Oman licenses, we received news that 8 had been received for one license and 7 for the other.
Grandao Extended was announced in April.
“ 90m at 0.96% Li₂O from surface including 31m at 1.06% Li₂O from surface and 34m at 1.37% Li₂O from 50m in 18GRARC65
Drilling to date at Grandao Extended has defined a zone of pegmatite approximately 300m long and 200m wide confirming the excellent potential of the zone”
The Grandao extended provided the first real sign that this was moving from a potentially good European lithium project, to something rather special and of real European strategic significance.
Despite the advancement of all projects during this period, the share price had a very muted response. It was as a I mentioned above a “dull period”. The market didn’t subscribe any new value to any of the advancements, I suggest this was in part, due to the  small fund raise, in part due to the mining cycle, but also in part due to the lack of value that the market assigns to news updates of these types.
As we move into May and June we enter the “phase of enlightenment”. Throughout this period there was only three major pieces of positive news, however the share price response was dramatic. From the 23rd of April to June 11th, the share price rose from 5.26 to 12.69. Intraday highs were actually far higher at 15.25p.
During this period the only news for Mozambique was that, in conjunction Rio Tinto, Savannah submitted mining licenses for the mineral sands deposit.
For Oman, the only news was that all magical signatures were obtained for the two Oman mining areas. The remaining obstacle left for the company and the granting of the mining licenses was formal approval by the ministry of mining.
Although the Oman mining license situation left shareholders expectant, neither of the projects provided the catalyst for share price increase, this was left to Portugal….
At the start of May, Savannah announced yet another 52% increased resource upgrade. This came quickly on top of the 200% upgrade less than three months earlier. It was a clear demonstration of the successful drilling undertaken and proved what many private investors who had been following the drilling had suspected..
The share price responded and started to rise, the company made a conscious effort to promote the company, including articles in national newspapers and trade publications. Based on the anticipation of the scoping study the share price rose to 12-13p.
On the 14th of June a scoping study was released.
  • ·         14.42Mt at 1.07% Lithium
  • ·         IRR of 63%
  • ·         £85m Capex
  • ·         Pre tax NPV of $356m

The share price responded well and maintained much of its gains.
In the background, like many AIM companies, Savannah was ensuring that it was fully funded for the foreseeable future by taking advantage of its higher share price. A share placing occurred on the 5th of July raising £12.5m at a price of 9p. Although this was below the heights that the company had reached, it was considerably in-excess of its news start point, back in April of only 5.2p.
For the rest of July we had the appointment of Primero to produce a feasibility study and an option to acquire some more land in Portugal.
From the placing in July, the share price has had a near straight decline until year end finishing back at 5.2p.
It would be an easy mistake, to assume that the company just suffered the normal AIM fate. The company was funded, the BOD could take its wages for another year, the company sat waiting on the PFS creation and on the Feasibility for Portugal.
This didn’t occur, instead the company entered a period of introspective improvement, from Aug to Dec. As mentioned above its important to note that this didn’t really change the downward movement of the share price, however they are the details that make this share so different to many others and longer term add the most value.
In Sept a further increase in JORC at the Mina Do Barroso Lithium deposit to compliment the already announced 14mt tonnes was declared. On top of the 200% increase, the 50% increase, we now had a further 50% increase to over 20mt of lithium.
More drilling was announced in Oman, we presume in order to facilitate the granting of the permission to mine in Oman.
A further mining license was requested for Mozambique and we finish September acquiring more mining lease applications for Portugal.
The final few months of the year consisted of agreements with Porto University and discovery of further zones of mineralisation in Portugal.
In December Savannah released the final significant piece of news with an increase in its Saleable Co-products. Along with its Lithium production, Savannah also plans to produce Feldspar and Quartz products from the waste. A specialist company was employed to assess and find final markets for a bulk sampling that took place. This waste material was found to be worth approx. 100-150% more than thought under the scoping study. It is anticipated that, along with other factors, it will enable Savannah’s lithium mine to be one of the cheapest in the world and the cheapest in Europe by a very wide margin.
Over the year the team at Savannah was expanded. James Leahy, formally of Bacanora Minerals joined in Novemeber. Martin Steinbild from Germany joined in January from Rockwood Lithium (brought by Albermarle Group) as a Lithium commercial director.
Finally during 2018, Savannah joined the EBA (European Battery Alliance), it’s a small group of companies under the direction of the EU Vice President to ensure that the European Union is a driving force in the electric car market. It recognises that battery metals and the creation of batteries are of strategic importance and aims to build partnerships between companies to keep things “European”. Most of Europe’s largest companies, car makers, electronic giants are members of this organisation. Over the year Savannah has clearly been leveraging this to its advantage.
Hopefully the above demonstrates that Savannah is very much “the teenage genius” the possibilities and potential is incredible, the company has made amazing strides and headways in 2018, achieving things that most, sometimes no other AIM company has been able to do. Some AIM companies might well brag about meetings with Asian government organisations. Or Joint Ventures with big companies, but Savannah takes this to the next level with its Rio Tinto JV and its EBA membership. Despite all this though the company has had a very troubled 2018 and it is important to realise why?

The lithium commodities market:

2018 was the much clichéd “Rollecoaster” for Lithium. At the start of the year Lithium prices were red hot, having risen by as much as 50% in the last 12 months. Nowhere was this more evident than China, which seemed determined not just to monopolise the lithium market, but to own it outright. Chinese lithium buyers were paying 20% above the global premium and Australian lithium hard rock miners were more than happy to take advantage of this, often in binding offtake agreements. Europe and to a lesser extent the US(with the exception of Tesla) were coming from behind, planning to build their battery megafactories to compete with China and only just starting to put offtake plans in place.
As we progressed through the year we had two important happenings. Firstly we had the earthquake of Trump. His Chinese trade war has had a major impact on the Chinese middleclass. It was this emerging middleclass that helped to drive the Chinese lithium demand, as well as potential export market longer term. The falling (relatively speaking) Chinese demand and the ever increasing Australian hard rock lithium turned a demand led boom of a higher price bubble, into a supply led glut. As we went through the year the Chinese premium evaporated and prices started a general fall globally.
The second major thing to happen is the rapidly expanding European battery market. Europe is set to build a host of megafactories. Much of the lithium supply hasn’t yet been arranged for this and with South America struggling and failing to meet its production targets, prices in Europe are showing some strength.
The falling of lithium prices generally and more particularly the collapse of the Chinese price bubble along with the failure of the S.American lithium producers has seen a significant fall in the share prices of Lithium companies over the last 6 months. Savannah Resources has been caught up in this.
The AIM market conditions haven’t helped conditions either, most reading this will be well aware that AIM liquidity has fallen sharply as funds and other HNW investors have left the market. Bottom feeders and quick buck merchants dominate any rise.
For Savannah resources a further unique affect has been the closing down of a large position by one of the Institutional investors that partook in the July placing. This isn’t through any fault of Savannah and is due to the investor suffering losses and withdrawing from the market.
Along with the effects of the mining cycle, which I have gone into length with in previous blogs, the lack of news particularly around Oman and short term nature of investors generally, has allowed the share price to fall as low at 4.7p recently.

What does 2019 hold for Savannah Resources?

Project
Performance Condition
Timing
Oman
Commencement of mining
December 2018
Mozambique
PFS completed and mining lease granted
March 2019
Portugal
Feasibility study completed and a strategic initiative entered into (e.g. securing major industry contract/alliance/offtake/equity investment from the lithium industry)
March 2019


Participant
Total Target Award
Form of Target Award
Applicable Project/Performance Condition
David Archer
100% of Salary
40% Cash
60% Deferred Equity
Oman
33.34%
Mozambique
33.33%
Portugal
33.33%
 
Dale Ferguson
100% of Salary
40% Cash
60% Deferred Equity
Oman
33.34%
Mozambique
33.33%
Portugal
33.33%
 
Michael McGarty
100% of Salary
40% Cash
60% Deferred Equity
Oman
33.34%
Mozambique
33.33%
Portugal
33.33%
 
Paul O'Donoghue
40% of Salary
 
40% Cash
60% Deferred Equity
Mozambique
100%








As always for completeness I am declaring I have been a long term holder of Savannah from pretty much the start of the company. Last year I added at 5.8-6.2p and 5.2p and have recently added in the last week between 4.8p and 4.9p.
·   * Taken from the RNS dated 13-04-18.
Of the three projects, I have reluctantly written off Oman. I so wish to see some value from it, but can’t in good faith say that I expect anything released to add value. I hope that I am wrong. I hope we get the mining license, get production started and very quickly earn money. On paper this is what should happen. However all of that should have happened last year, as per the management’s incentive scheme.
Mozambique has an interesting 2019 coming up. During 2018 nothing of real significance occurred on this project. 2017 saw the completion of the scoping study and the raising of Savannah’s stake in the JV to 20%. The PFS has been a long time coming, it’s a considerable project, valued at well over £1bn and Rio Tinto requires a very detailed set of studies. The next stage in the JV agreement beyond the PFS is a DFS (Definitive Feasibility Study), which would earn SAV 51% and control on the JV. It is in this context that the PFS should be viewed.
As part of the normal mining cycle the PFS would carry considerable share price weight under normal circumstances. With 1bn+ NPV, profit and revenue figures on a project that already has one of the world’s largest companies with an offtake agreement to take 100% of the mined resources this should doubly be the case. With Savannah resources though the PFS carries even greater significance. IF Rio Tinto want to carry on to the next stage, (the DFS) it will be Rio committing to giving Savannah controlling ownership of the JV.
This nicely bring us to Rio’s role in the JV. Rio’s latest production report last month. (https://www.riotinto.com/documents/190118_Rio_Tinto_releases_fourth_quarter_production_results.pdf).
In every production report for the last few years. Rio has included its Mutamba JV with Savannah as a tier 1 project. It’s one of only 7 projects in the studies stage. I have spoken to Rio several times about it, but Rio Tinto have a firm rule of not commenting on projects until they are pass their PFS. Presumably if the PFS isn’t good and they don’t want to continue it they can just drop it.
Due to the above if Savannah and the JV opt to continue to DFS when the PFS is release or indicate that this is the plan it should create considerable reporting interest and global coverage. Given all of the above the PFS should add considerable value to the SP. Obviously I don’t know what the NPV 8 will be on the project, but I suspect it will be at least 20-25p, probably considerably higher.
The timing of the PFS should be soon, to meet the incentive award it has to be by March, but could slip to April/May. March is also the timeline when the Mozambique Govt will report back on the mining license application.
This kind of project, with this kind of JV partner, with firm bankable PFS figures and a mining license will be many steps up from where we were in 2018.

Moving onto Portugal, 2018 was anything but a slow year for Portugal, the anchor effects on the share price should reduce, the China/US spat should show signs of being overcome. More importantly the demand for lithium for Europe should start to grow very strongly, possibly resulting in a European lithium price bubble as we enter 2020-2022 as the food for mega factories is needed.
I am fully expecting the Lithium resource size to continue to grow at a fast rate, maybe taking the size of the project to 30-40mt. This would make it one of the biggest 15 hard rock lithium sources in the world.
The feasibility study when its produced is bankable and will provide figures far in excess of the scoping study. A minimum for me is an NPV 8 of 30p. We already had some of the world’s lowest costs in the project, but with the new figures on by product prices we should see the project being one of the top 5 hard rock lithium projects for lowest costs per tonne in the world.
The IRR of the project, how quickly it will make a return on the capex, is likely to go even high as profits per tonne increase. Portugal is already one of the quickest/best IRR’s on the London Stock Exchange, both AIM and Main Index.
To meet the incentive criteria both the feasibility study and the strategic partner should be in place by the end of March. Again there is always the possibility this might slip, however both should be in between March and May very comfortably.
I think the strategic partner might well be given some pre release draft information from the Feasibility creation and that be announced first. My guess would be in the next 3-4 weeks. Given the favourable location and membership of the EBA, a strategic partner from the EBA seems most likely and desirable. My own hunch is a major European car maker, with a tie up to China, allowing Savannah’s lithium to be process in China until the European processing capability is in place.
With a low Capex and a very strong, stable partner and EBA/EU backing, the market should assign almost NPV 8 value to the project as it would be deemed highly likely of happening with production next year.
The announcement of the strategic partner is in some ways more important than the feasibility study. As we’ve seen recently with the likes of SOLG, when a company has a large external investor investing into a company it assigns a high degree of value to company and the share price responds. Not least because we would expect any strategic company to help fund the modest capex.
So key share price points.
-       Mozambique’s PFS and Rio’s continual involvement.
-       Mozambique mining license approval.
-       Portugal’s Strategic Partner.
-       Lithium Feasibility Study.
-       Lithium Go decision, funding and construction start.
All of the above should add anything from 10-30p to the share price as a minimum. After having the foresight to load up on cash at 9p, this is the year that Savannah moves out of its teenage genius stage, where people other than its loving family see the value and invest in its future. Where it steps onto the world stage.
The current share price doesn’t factor any of these factors, nor the amount of attention that Savannah will be receiving over the coming 6-12 months as Europe’s largest source of Lithium and Rio Tinto’s partner.
For certain though 2019 will have neither, trials or tribulations.

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