Talked with company, gold and nickel info Called Rob at RNC. And covered many areas with him. He confirmed that Sprott would have to report it if he sold any stock, so shorts/covers would not be him. Another 13 million shares were sold to institutions that said they would be long term holders, but possible they fibbed about that.
1. On the company, yes they have said 4-6 weeks for drill reports so by early April there will be another, so 1-3 weeks max.
2. They will try and get drill details for 2017 to me to compare to new holes. They think thickness is not appreciated yet by market on last report.
3. They are following up as one would think on bonanza grade drill hits at A Zone and Western Flanks, closer drilling to them to delineate and planning to extract the ore at FDV. All as I expected.
4. Asked what is mkt missing most? That curtailed bulk mining now is necessary for higher production later and at lower costs with a mine plan.
Nickel: Said had read their minds. Indeed the nickel price rise could result in them mining nickel again at Beta Hunt and assist Dumont.
1. They watch warehouse levels at LME and knew exactly where they are today https://www.kitcometals.com/charts/nickel_historical_large.html#5years when we talked.
190,000 tons, that is 140,000 tons less than a year ago, super low levels. Said it would be easy to restart nickel at Beta if they wanted to. That it is high grade, 4% nickel, and airleg mined.
2. Both mines (Beta and Dumont) can be battery nickel grade. That at Dumont they have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentlandite pentlandite and other minerals with nickel, the pentlandite is the best for batteries and maybe they can sell that portion directly to battery/auto companies. At Beta currently they sell to refiners so no control, but BHP is building a battery nickel type 1 plant nearby and do not have enough feed so RNC guessing they can toll mill in future there, to get battery nickel premium.
So as guessed on many things and they are watching nickel closely for possible restart. Just my guess at $6.50 think they would do it, starting and stopping is not all that hard as all the infrastructure and knowledge already there.