RE:Price Stall - Construction - Feasibility Study - FinancingHi BarnFind,
Good questions and summary.
As with the Cobalt dramas happening in DRC, supply shortage, you would think that our SP should be much higher, and lots of North American end users would jump in to sign the deals with ECS, denifinately something is happening behind. I assume everyone has been waitting the Feasibility Study.
I "feel" some juniors in North American have been trying to "Sell the Cobalt Stories", rather than move swiftly to "Develop their Properties". It is so disappointed with the sluggish performance.
tiger
BarnFind wrote: Until Ecobalt shows real progress on mine development, I expect the share price will stay flat. The greatest risk for Ecobalt is time. If it is to be an operating mining company, it needs to get to the production stage ASAP - to avoid the risk of the cobalt market changing in a negative manner. Currently they appear to be burning cash and not getting much done.
I understand that they have issued certain contracts recently, but why did they wait so long? While snow on the ground impacts construction, it should not impact the process of getting contracts in place. There is a relatively short construction season where the mine is located, so contruction needs to be optimized - it should be in fulll swing now, but it is my understanding that it is not.
While Ecobalt needs more capital to complete the project, it has significant cash on hand. However, management appears to be spending most of its efforts trying to market Ecobalt's possibilities instead of building Ecobalt into a true operating company. This limits bargaining power and could result in a deal with heavy dilution for existing stakeholders and futher share price stagnation.
Without positve cashflow, bank financing will not happen. For that, Ecobalt would need to get much closer to production and have offtake contracts in hand.
I am also concerned with Ecobalt's holding back of the revised Feasability Study. Unfortuantely I expect they will release the revised FS and at the same a proposed equity financing deal with heavy dilution.
The Board members need to remember that they have a fiduciary duty (personal liability) to all of the existing shareholders and act accoringly.
My question to the Board is whether the approach is to create an operating mining company or to sell mining rights and permits? Neither iapproach s wrong, but we need to know what the end game is for shareholders to continue investing in Ecobalt.