Geovic Mining, Cobalt in Cameroon Options

[AceofKY]

Geovic Mining (GMC.v on the TSX venture exchange) looks very interesting. First, Geovic owns a 60% share in the world’s largest cobalt resource in Cameroon. There is also a significant amount of nickel and manganese in the deposit. A large percentage of the remaining 40% share is owned by a corporation that appears to be controlled by the Cameroon government, so there is significant incentive for the government to advance this deposit.

The first of seven deposits has been evaluated through the prefeasibility stage and this report can be downloaded on SEDAR. The prefeasibility uses conservative numbers, $16.83 Co and $5.78 Ni, for the base case economic evaluation scenario. Even better, the reserves of the deposit were calculated on $12 Co and $3.50 Ni yielding a 21 year mine life. The in situ value of the first deposit is about $12.8 billion using the base case numbers. This is very misleading, however, since the net payable metal recoveries will be very low (~57.2% for Co and 15.4% for Ni). I was hoping that these recoveries were conservative assumptions too, but the COO confirmed that we will not likely see much more than 58% for Co and 17% for Ni due to metallurgical issues and the proposed process that maximizes Co extraction at the expense of Ni extraction (which yields the optimum NPV & IRR). Base case NPV (Geovic’s 60% share) is about $317M and IRR is about 77%. This does not include any debt financing, but they will definitely be financing a portion of the project via debt which will increase the NPV and IRR. Capital costs will be very low at around $111M. Financially, this is a low risk high return project. Compare to projects such as Novagold’s Galore Creek where it will take a $2 billion capital expenditure to generate approximately the same NPV and with a low IRR.

There are 6 other deposits, one of which (Mada) has a NI43-101 compliant inferred resource.

Let’s take a stab at a very conservative valuation. The objective here is to find the absolute minimum this company’s assets are worth. If we can buy the assets alone for less than they are worth, then there is very little risk to our investment. The rest is upside. Numbers are in US dollars.

#Shares Out: ~101M of which ~11% is owned by management
#Shares FD: ~135M (no more equity is needed to finance the project)

Working Cap, FD: ~$156M or $1.15/FD share

No debt (yet)

Nkamouna deposit base NPV from prefeasibility (x 60%): $317M or $2.34/FD share

Mada deposit value: This is the 145M tonne inferred resource which hasn’t been thru feasibility yet. Looking at the nearby Nkamouna deposit, the NPV ended up being about 4% of the in situ value of the deposit. Let’s be conservative and use 2% of the Mada in-situ value. This yields $242M or $1.79/FD share. It should be much higher since they will share the same infrastructure.

Base case value: Working Cap – Debt + Nkamouna NPV + Mada Estimated NPV = $5.28/FD share.

Geovic is currently trading at approximately US$3.3/outstanding share.


Conclusion: We can buy Geovic for approximately a 37% discount to a very conservative estimate of its asset value, which implies a minimum share price appreciation of 60% needed just to get back to a reasonable valuation of assets. All of the upside with respect to high commodity prices, additional deposits, reinvestment of free cash flow, etc, is a bonus. This is not a marginal resource that can be mined only when commodity prices are high. This is the type of resource that the big boys look for. The only significant risk seems to be Cameroon, and it seems to be one of the more stable countries in Africa.


Ace

[AceofKY]

Correction: "world's largest cobalt resource" should say "perhaps the world's largest cobalt resource."

There are 5 deposits which they haven't published resource figures on yet because they are only defined by test pits spaced 1 km apart. No value, however, was assigned to these deposits in the above valuation. Note that Tenke has a larger NI43-101 compliant cobalt resource in their DRC copper resource.

[bobbyald]

Base case value: Working Cap – Debt + Nkamouna NPV + Mada Estimated NPV = $5.28/FD share.

Geovic is currently trading at approximately US$3.3/outstanding share.

So todays price of $1.58 would be a bargain then?

[AceofKY]

So todays price of $1.58 would be a bargain then?

The feasibility study highlights were recently released, to the great disappointment of investors. NPV and IRR of the project has dropped using the base case futures prices. And the higher capital costs likely means more equity will need to be raised.

Any way I work the numbers, however, $1.58 is still a good buy and I'm holding my shares.

[AceofKY]

Any way I work the numbers, however, $1.58 is still a good buy and I'm holding my shares.

She continues to plummet - down another 20% today. The babies are getting thrown out with the bathwater here.

[Bluespyglass]

ACE of KY

You are not alone. Read this analysis of GEOVIC

http://www.vanguardsolutions.ca/i/pdf/07-1...-GMC-update.pdf

Geovic will make the patient investor rather wealthy.

[AceofKY]

Geovic will make the patient investor rather wealthy.

At this point, I'd settle for mere return of capital.

[Bluespyglass]

Geovic insiders are buying.

http://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1398005.htm

Other newletters are paying attention.

http://www.vanguardsolutions.ca/i/pdf/ReinhardGMC.pdf

http://www.vanguardsolutions.ca/i/pdf/08-0...GMC-mention.pdf

Cobalt prices are rising - last buy was at $50 per pound!

http://cobalt.bhpbilliton.com/

[Bluespyglass]

MineralSTOX has a positive review of GEOVIC

http://www.mineralstox.com/info/street.asp?newsid=1525

[Bluespyglass]

Geovic Mining Corp. Announces 2007 Results

Geovic has $78 million in cash.

Geovic diversifies with vast mineral leases of gold and uranium properties in Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming.

Arizona Properties

Through geologic mapping and geochemical sampling, the Company has
identified several new areas of gold and uranium mineralization in the
Whetstone Mountains, located 64 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of
Tucson, Arizona. The Company located 51 federal lode claims covering
approximately 1,000 acres of expected uranium mineralization in the
northern Whetstone Mountains. In addition to the indicated uranium
mineralization in the area, the pre-Cambrian hosted shear zones also
appear to contain anomalous fluorite, copper and gold. In the same
general area, the Company also leased approximately 16.8 square
kilometers (6.5 square miles) of state of Arizona mineral lands
covering a newly identified gold occurrence. The total cost of leasing
the state land and staking the mineral claims was about $24,000. The
work commitment on the state mineral lands is $41,000 per year. The
annual fee to hold the 51 mineral claims on federal lands is
approximately $9,000.

The Whetstone Mountain area where the claims are located was
previously explored in the 1970s and 1980s by Rocky Mountain Energy
(Union Pacific Railroad) and Unocal (Union Oil Co of California), at a
time when members of the Company's management were employed by the
latter company. Related documentation compiled by those early
operators show that the newly acquired properties have significant
uranium oxide (U3O8) mineralization hosted in high-angle shear zones
within the pre-Cambrian granite complex that forms the core of the
Whetstone Mountains. The Company plans to re-drill the historic
resource areas, and test for extensions when it begins a drilling
program later this year or early 2009.

On the state mineral leases containing the new gold occurrence, the
Company collected 33 surface rock chip samples of the previously
unexplored area, covering a zone 600 feet x 1,800 feet (185m x 550m),
underlain by quartz stockwork with associated alteration features.
These samples assayed up to 1.0 gram of gold per tonne (1.0 gm/t), and
averaged 0.1 gm/t. Additional sampling is planned, possibly followed
by geophysical surveys before a drilling program is designed to test
for economic gold concentrations within the indicated epithermal gold-
quartz system.

Colorado/Wyoming Properties

We have also targeted and are acquiring fee mineral leases over the
known uranium deposits in the Denver-Cheyenne Basin of Northeastern
Colorado and Southeastern Wyoming. These 15-year mineral leases cover
large portions of the six (6) main known uranium deposits in Weld
County, Colorado and Goshen County, Wyoming. As of the end of 2007, we
have incurred approximately $2.82 million in leasing costs to acquire
approximately 15,500 acres believed to host historical uranium
deposits at depths ranging from 120 feet to 600 feet below the
surface. The acquired properties are known to host shallow Cretaceous
age sandstone "roll-front" uranium deposits. These deposits are
believed to average in excess of 7 feet of uranium mineralization,
with average grades between 0.07 to 0.20% U3O8, as established by
other operators in the 1970s, including Union Oil of California, by
whom several members of management of the Company were then employed.
Through the leases it now holds, Geovic Energy has control over much
of the known mineralized area in Eastern Weld County, Colorado and
Goshen County, Wyoming.

Geovic Energy is planning an extensive development-drilling program to
re-confirm the historical resources, with the goal of establishing
reserves. This will be followed, as soon as practical, by
environmental and related engineering studies.

Complete Press Release available :

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/ge...rp-announces-...

Good investing!

[Bluespyglass]

Geovic Mining Corp. Updates Progress at Nkamouna Cobalt Project

Good progress continues on Cobalt Project. See latest progress update.

http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=841305

Good investing!

[Bluespyglass]

Power Point Presentation Updating Geovic

http://geovic.net/pdf/2008/GMC%20PPT%20%202-25-08.pdf

Good Investing!

[Bluespyglass]

Geovic's Uranium Leases

Extensive article on Geovic's Uranium Leases

http://www.ncbr.com/article.asp?id=92855

Good Investing!

[Bluespyglass]

Geovic Mining research report available at

http://www.themarkettraders.com/content/ge...t-player-making

Good Investing

[Bluespyglass]

Geovic CEO podcast

http://www.themarkettraders.com/content/th...t-geovic-mining

Interesting listening.

[Pixel8r]

Al Korelin talks with Andrew Hoffman, Vice president of Geovic Mining.

[Pixel8r]

Does anyone know what happened yesterday +34%