RE:Comparison of Kamoa-Kukula with Tenke FungurumeA couple of points in IVN's favor. Since the sale of TF, cobalt has shot up in price a lot more than copper. It's more than doubled. Therefore the copper equivalency would be lower at the time of sale, closer to 1.6%. Together with the 2.5% copper grade, overall copper equivalent grade would reduce from today's 5.3% to 4.1%.This is still very high grade for an open pit, where costs are much lower than an underground mine, and production throughput increases by five to ten times. The comparison between Kamoa-Kakula and Tenke Fungurume remains the same.
Also, you would expect that TF would receive more for the property today than at the time of sale, since both copper and cobalt prices are much higher. The question is by how much? Western miners are still not beating a path to Congo. It remains to be seen how much more Chinese state miners would be willing to pay. They've been buying everything at rock bottom fire sale pricing. Once sales leave the bargain bin they may be less forthcoming.
Chevy has brought up KAT several times. It's a combination open pit and underground. Once again you're looking at high grade copper/cobalt. 110 MT measured and indicated at 9.7% copper equivalent. Another 78 MT inferred at 8% CuEq. Higher grades win over raw bulk tonnage on share price. Looking at the most recent drillhole data, Kakula has a strong central high grade zone, surrounded by moderate grades of 2 to 3%. This is probably the reason share price has been lagging, while companies like KAT have gone on a tear. As noted, KAT is also in production. It's interesting that they don't have much in the way of investor relations, and don't bother with presentations.When you have the goods, you don't need to seek investors, they seek you. Yet KAT has 1.907 billion shares out and IVN with 786 million is nowhere close to that.
That said, if these high copper prices continue, the massive bulk tonnage of Kamoa-Kakula (together with large high grade zones) can't help but support a stronger share price as the project continues to advance.. And there are still two other mega projects in the pipeline.