Calculation examplesfrom my (updated) Tamerlane analysis on https://www.loparn.com
With an estimated historic resource base of about 70 millions of tons from all 34 deposits, near the Pine Point area with its historic mine , containing an around 1.6% lead and 4.2% zinc, the total sales value at metal market price would be around USD 10.9 billion, with zinc accounting for most of that value. The long term price outlook for zinc and lead seems good, as long as the China and India economies continue to grow at a very high level.
If you just would like a hint of the long term stock potential of TAM, let us take a look at this example. Assume that the Tamerlane profit margin after all costs including tax will average 10-20 % (which is lower than the approximately derived profit margin from the higher grade pilot project R – 190 calculation below ). That would leave TAM potential future nominal profits after tax of around USD 1.09-2.18 billion. The total production time is assumed to be around 30 years. Now if we just calculate with the first 10 years of production starting with 2009, total net earnings would be half of that or around USD 363-726 million. The 2007 discounted value at 10 % interest rate, is around USD 203-406 million. At this moment there are only nearly 41 million diluted shares. but let us calculate with a heavy stock dilution for the total financing, to 100 million TAM shares, we would get an earnings based approximate discounted net per share value of around CAD 2.35-4.70 in 2007 (with USD=1.16 CAD), compared to the CAD 0.53 closing price as of March 16 2007. So the stock potential has to be very high, even if the calculation assumes unchanged metal prices, but on the other hand assumes a very big stock dilution and only considers the roughly calculated discounted value of first 10 years of earnings.
Long term average zinc and lead prices may be significantly lower in the future than in the calcution above which used the Feb 2 levels, and much lower average prices should reduce the discounted value significantly. On the other hand TAM should be able to debt finance at least a great part of the capital needed for the pilot project, thus resulting in far less stock dilution and a much higher discounted value per share. These two factors may in the long run more or less neutralize each other, since they work in opposite directions, and therefore the expected value of the discounted long term stock price could be in the order of the calculated value above.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Now if you examine the case within the more foreseeable future a little more close, the R – 190 pilot project is supposed to produce 0.110 million tons of zink and 0.0555 million tons of lead in just two years according to the news release of May 16 2006 (even if their are indications of a production time shorter than that). The company then would have total revenues of about USD 432 million, corresponding to approximately CAD 250 million average per year, still assuming metal market prices of Feb 2007. The costs are very roughly assumed to be CAD 160 million per year, indicating profits before tax of around CAD 90 million and earnings per share of around CAD 0.6 after assumed 35 % tax and a heavy stock dillution up to 100 million shares. The profit margin after tax then would be around 23 %. If the pilot project takes less time than 2 years, which might be the case, the earnings per share should be correspondingly higher than calculated. Thus the total profit per share due to the pilot project would be around CAD 1.2 or more, achieved in around two years or less (corresponding to an annual earnings per share of around CAD 0.6 or more).
As pointed out before though, TAM could ,at least partly, debt finance the pilot project, thus resulting in less stock dilution. TAM could also hedge metal prices (but at a lower price level than the shortest term metal prices) probably even for the whole pilot project. Combining these two measures TAM might even show slightly higher earnings per share at a lower risk, due to the hedging, than in my previous estimate of the pilot project.
A short term stock price target should not discount all of these scenarios now, but a mere fraction of them. I find that CAD 1-1.50 seems a rather realistic fundamentally based stock price in this rather early stage, i e just before the feasibility study becomes official, and before the pilot project R – 190 hopefully will be permitted. After a potentially or most likely fully permitted project probably late this year, my TAM price target should be increased to CAD 2-3 assuming current metal price levels stay intact. CAD 2-3 then would roughly imply a one-two years looking forward p/e ratio of around 3-5 or even less, if you accept the CAD 0.6 or more earnings per share as reasonable (with the earnings per share possibly even higher if there will be less than 100 millions shares with debt financing as discussed before).