Ilmenite data
https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/ilmenite-market
The global ilmenite market was valued at US$ 11.1Billion in 2022 and is anticipated to expand at 4.1% CAGR from 2023 to 2032. The US ilmenite market = US$2.7B.
Global market = US$11.1B per annum = US$925M per month
in Jan 2024 Largo’s first ilmenite sale = 500T. For the sake of argument let’s say that the selling price = US$300/T, so the value of Largo’s Jan sale can be estimated to be $300 x 500T = US$150,000 which is like a microscopic drop in the ocean when compared to the global market size of US$925M/month. Therefore it’s absolutely safe to say that the players in the ilmenite space could not care less about Largo’s selling price. The only people who want to know about the price level that Largo can get from the sale of its ilmenite are the company’s analysts, shareholders and investors. That is why the following non-answer reply from Vollant to Heiko Ihle question sounds so weird to me. Instead of a word salad, why is it so hard for Vollant to provide some tangible numbers / estimates / expectation with regard to the selling prices?
Heiko Ihle
Got it. Very helpful. Speaking of ilmenite, prices for globally sourced ilmenite, there's obviously some variability. I know that hedging vanadium is quite tough price wise. Is there a way to hedge ilmenite pricing? And if so, have you looked into it? And also, what prices are you seeing, please? Thank you.
Paul Vollant
Yes. So there's no way to hedge ilmenite, such, as considered kind of electronically traded commodities. But the good news is that ilmenite, is a much more stable commodity in terms of price if you compare it to vanadium, right? The variations are much lower. We're able to secure some contracts forward at a fixed price. But we cannot really say that we're hedging, right?
Well we can fix prices, two or three months ahead, maybe, as long as six months ahead, but not much more. And yes, so our strategy is also to follow the market. But again, I mean, this price is much more stable than what you've been used to in vanadium. In terms of price level, it's still, somewhat, we're still in a price discovery phase, because the price of ilmenite is not increasing linearly with quality.
Actually, you've got massive premium for higher quality product, which - is where we're getting to now. So the prices that we achieved in our initial sales for the material that, we produced during the ramp up at lower quality, should be very different in a few quarters, when we have stable production at higher grades. So, we can probably give you more color on that in the next - either next quarter or the following month.