quakes99 wrote: Absolutely agree, moneysworth. In order for either company to succeed, both must succeed. A new Patterson Lake Corridor is emerging, that requires a new processing mill with associated Tailings Management Facility, water treatment systems, and a wide range of infrastructure to be built... airport, accommodations, power grid, highway upgrades, vehicle maintenance and the like. Seen together, the projects are able to reduce their development and production costs by cost-sharing the entire mill and infrastructure construction... which is good for the shareholders of both companies. Trying to go it alone makes no sense whatsoever, and would be hard to push through the regulatory process.
Both projects together provide the essential elements needed to support that development... open pits to provide low-cost starter production and Tailings facility, pit material that can be used to downblend high-grade ore from undergound mining to as to cut the cost of a mill in half, decades worth of high-grade U3O8 to validate the potential for development and permitting by regulators, and the essential buy-in from communities and First Nations leaders.
Neither project can be seen in isolation, as both will be under the scrutiny of Provincial and Federal governments and agencies involved in the Environmental Assessment and public engagement process. They must work together to provide those agencies with a regional development plan that can be put to First Nations stakeholders and assessed as a package for Environmental impacts and economic benefits to the region.
We may see the beginnings of that soon, once both projects have an NI 43-101 Preliminary Economic Assessment in hand. NexGen has indicated that they will be spending up to $200M over the next 2 years, including a shaft-sinking to carry out underground delineation of the Arrow deposits. When Cameco applied to do that at McArthur River, it triggered a 2-year public consultation process before approval was given. A shaft-sinking is viewed as development, rather than exploration, as it goes far beyond surface drilling. Similarly, Fission will be spending up to $50M over the next 2 years to get PLS through a Pre-Feasibility Study that would serve as a development decision juncture. Both projects will be moving permit applications and documentation through the regulatory process, which, imho, will trigger the request for a joint proposal from both companies for a regional development plan.
In fact, it may be for just those reasons that Fission is holding off on publishing a revised Resource Update and PEA to include the additional 50-60M lbs discovered over the past 2 years. They may be waiting for NexGen to publish its own PEA so that their own RE and PEA update can reference the synergies provided by that NI 43-101 technical report on Arrow. Both companies are using RPA as the independent mining consultant, so you can bet that the internal synergies will be recognized within RPA's domain. If Fission can reference NexGen's mill and infrastructure requirements alongside its own in a revised PEA, then that could trigger significant CAPEX reductions and increased IRR and NPV's, a huge boon to Fission shareholders.
While in the short term it may be that both companies appear independent, that is soon to come to an end, in my opinion.
Further, most investors already recognize this and I would expect that the vast majority of Fission shareholders are also NexGen shareholders. Their future path is becoming more and more entwined, and the success of one does indeed improve the value of the other.
Cheers and thanks for your thoughtful posts!
Hope you had a great Canada Day. ;-)
moneysworth wrote: LeeChaChong,
Trying to understand your rationale for continuing to bash Nexgen??? Whether you want to admit it or not, we're one BIG uranium area play... and, we're ALL in this together! What's good for NXE is definitely good for us! Wish we'd receive the same love they have. However, our turn will certainly be coming VERY soon. Sometimes those who wait longest receive great rewards. Still can't knock Nexgen, they're well on their way to world class status, as Fission will very soon be headed.