FPX nickel to produce 45,000 tons/yr nickel worth 75 milIf anybody thinks Waterton is going to get 1 billiion $ for the Dumont property, I believe they are sadly mistaken.. Here in Canada there is a company (FPX)that has comparable amounts of high quality nickel to Dumont, who also have a feasibility study suggesting they will produce around 45 thousand tonnes of nickel per year for something like 30 or 40 years is only worth 75 million dollars canadian right now.
Dumont is to produce 39,000 tonnes a year and I believe that is from going from stage 1 production to stage 2 production a few years down the line, so that 39,000 tonnes of nickel produced is something like 10 years out from when a company begins production at Dumont. Why would anyone pay 1 billion for Dumont, when they could buy out FPX for 100 million$ ?
Vale (a gigantic Brazilian mining company) bought out some other nickel deposit in Quebec last year or in 2022 and is now going to build a processing plant in Quebec. They did not need Dumont, it seems..
In the meantime, Krr has saved 2 million$ / year on maintenance costs from dumont and were able to walk away with something like 3 million$ of their own money. They were paid something like 7 million $ ish up front and together with their cash reserves, they walked away initially with almost 11 million $ canadian.. They can still get up to 40 million$ if Dumont gets sold for at least in the 250 million$-300 million $ canadian range...but I suspect that nobody is going to pay that much for Dumont... I hope I am wrong, though..
Dumont will need probably 2.5 billion dollars of capex over the first 10 years to get up and running, but I could be way off on that, but you get my point.. No major is going to pay 1 billion for Dumont only to have to still go out and pay out another 2.5 billion to bring it into full production..
In the meantime , KRR has now walked away from the Dumont project and is about 16 or 17 million dollars richer and counting.. So, I think in the end, when Dumont is finally sold, Huet will have been viewed as having made a good decision by getting out of the Dumont deposit...
Of course I could be totally wrong, which would not be a bad thing because it will mean that KRR will get that 40 million extra dollars when Dumont is finally sold, but I would not hold my breath on that...