lets recap...Current measured resource is 8.53 million tones containing 353,200 ounces of palladium (1.29 g/t), 116,800 ounces of platinum (0.43 g/t) and 20,400 ounces of gold (0.07 g/t) and an indicated resources of 22.02 million tonnes containing 600,700 ounces of palladium (0.85 g/t), 212,800 ounces of platinum (0.30g/t) and 39,000 ounces of gold (0.06 g/t) with an additional inferred resource of 2.39 million tones containing 67,000 ounces of palladium (0.87g/t), 23,800 ounces of platinum (0.31g/t) and 4,000 ounces of gold (0.05 g/t) using a 0.7 g/t cut off (pt/pd) (PFN press release March 22, 2007) .
ok thats 1,020,900 ounces of palladium and 353,400 ounces of platinum in the ground and its still open to the south and at depth. at current prices ($1,900 for Pt and $415 for Pd) thats worth $423 million in palladium and $671 million in platinum.....thats about $1.1 billion dollars and I'm not including the gold that will be recovered.
an open pit mining operation (20,000 tonnes/day) and mill would have capital costs of roughly $300 million. they would probably get a 25% rate of return on their investment over a 10 year plus mine life.
PFN owns 40% of it (roughly $440 million net worth). divide that by the 78 million shares they have and its $5.64 a share. i would guess stillwater or anglo would buy out PFN's share for about $150 million which would amount to a about a $2 share price. since its trading at 30 cents that $2/share price looks pretty good for shareholders.
as markets indicate, PGE is in tight supply and will stay strong for the next 5-10 years. both stillwater and anglo need more ore badly. PFN has a 40% interest in one of VERY few deposits that are currently unmined and has excellent infrastructure and close to a major mining city (Sudbury). stillwater is buying in at 50 cents as other have in the recent PP so that tells you that they have plans for the deposit in the near term.
looks like a no brainer to me people. PFN looks like a takeover target at about $2 in the near term.