Vast Resources Share Discussion Threads

[deanroberthunt] 24/10/2017 05:53

fund/trust dumped 178m shares and the stock has still gone up over 100%, nuff said

[bill hickman] 24/10/2017 00:06

Bobby and Yorgi, St Annes is not a trust fund in the true sense of the word it is a limited company taken from the tr1, anyway they dont matter they are probably out now.

"St Anne's Trustees Limited"

[bobby.ifa] 23/10/2017 23:36

Thanks tidy, interesting reading.

[yorgi] 23/10/2017 20:22

Saturn don't forget Sapi they would appear to have been either reducing or selling out and had 232,361,429 on the last TR1 they issued, I don't think I have missed a later one. They could be holding less but not issued another TR1 yet or of course they may not be dumping more, we will have to wait and see.

[temmujin] 23/10/2017 20:14

Capitalising on a Vast opportunity

Vast Resources (LN:VAST) is a junior with big ambitions. The Romania and Zimbabwe-focused copper, zinc and gold producer is looking at a portfolio with the potential to propel it into mid-tier status with a modest amount of funding and some hard graft.
Mining Journal18 Oct 201713:03 Company Profile
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ManailaOP-web
Manaila produced 1,082 tonnes of copper and 118t of zinc in the September quarter
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TOPICS (select for more information):

Andrew Prelea Baita Plai Carlibaba Giant Manaila Pickstone-PeerlessCopper Gold ZincRomania ZimbabweVast Resources
This year has seen the company sell off a 25% interest in the subsidiary holding the Pickstone-Peerless and Giant gold mines in Zimbabwe, and put more cash into its 100%-owned Manaila polymetallic mine in north-eastern Romania.

It is the latter that has got its investors excited as the company tries to leverage its ‘first-mover advantage’ in the European country.

The company’s Romania story started back in 2012 when African Consolidated Resources (Vast’s previous name) completed an exclusive due dilligence exercise on 55 precious metal and polymetallic assets previously run by state-owned company Remin.

Located over a prospective 100km land package, the majority of the mines and projects were shut down in 2006 in preparation for the country joining the European Union – membership of which is granted on the basis of no industry being subsidised.


“Of the 55 mines with 16 mining licences, we ended up looking at nine and, of these nine, five were commercially viable,” Vast’s president and executive director for Romania, Andrew Prelea (pictured), tells Mining Journal.

This has since led to the company becoming the only non-ferrous miner independent of the state-run mining entity in Romania.

Manaila is producing copper and zinc in concentrate form, and churned out 1,082 tonnes and 118t of the two base metals in the September quarter, with copper production showing a 31% upswing on the previous three-month period.

Vast has worked very hard to get the asset to this position, transforming the operation over the past two years.

“We basically had to rebuild operations using a flotation building originally used for manganese and an openpit which did not benefit from the full planning expected for an openpit” Prelea said.

On top of this, the concentrate the mine was producing required improvements.

Priot to Vast, a Chinese consortium were operating Manaila and producing a single concentrate grading 13-15% Cu and 12% Zn.

The zinc content in the copper concentrate was enough to make most copper smelters baulk and, unsurprisingly the product was heavily penalised.

Through a series of internal and external studies, the company found an appropriate metal balance and now produces two separate concentrates – copper and zinc – that are in a sweetspot for its customers, according to Prelea.

Manaila has an indicated and inferred openpit resource of 2.6 million tonnes at 1% Cu, 0.4% Pb and 0.9% Zn, along with an underground base of 310,000t at 1.7% Cu, 0.4% Pb and 0.5% Zn (indicated and inferred).

The openpit numbers imply Vast only has three years of operating life left here, but it has plenty of expansion opportunities.

Vast has already outlined a 4.45Mt-11.88Mt exploration target with grades up to 2.3% Cu, 0.5% Pb and 1.1% Zn, but recent results from the first 1,000m of a 2,200m drilling programme at the adjacent Carlibaba prospect show potential for adding a second openpit mine to the Manaila complex.

This drilling reported intercepts of 3m at 2.93% Cu, 0.88% Pb, 1.95% Zn, 0.47g/t Au and 93.33g/t Ag, and 5.9m grading 1.97% Cu, 0.3% Pb, 0.71% Zn, 0.62g/t Au and 26.29g/t Ag from shallow depths.

“We want to transition from junior into mid tier by leveraging off our current first-mover advantage”
The company has also been granted a licence extension enlarging its prospecting area by over 20 times. In addition, the company has been granted two new prospecting licences for the Piciorul Zimbrului and Magura Neagra polymetallic prospects, the latter of which is thought to host porphyry copper-type mineralisation with veins containing gold, silver, molybdenum, lead and zinc.

On top of this, Vast has an underground exploration target at Manaila of 5.92Mt-15.78Mt grading up to 2.6% Cu, 2% Pb and 2.6% Zn.

Cutting costs
A company requires a significant amount of plant infrastructure to process all of this material; something Vast already has.

Although the equipment was not optimised when Vast arrived in 2015, the company has been able to refurbish all of the processing facilities at its metallurgical complex.

It now has two operational mills, three operational flotation circuits, and a test flotation circuit; the latter of which can be used to improve the quality and quantity of the concentrates.


The exploration programme at Carlibaba has already seen some impressive results
The only issue is where all of this plant is located – Iacobeni, 26km away from Manaila.

“Our biggest problem has been transport, which accounts for in excess of 25% of our production costs,” Prelea says.

Currently, the company is having to truck ore and waste between the mine, the metallurgical complex, and the tailings facility.

This is the main reason for the company posting a US$2.4 million loss from continuing operations in its 2017 financial year (to March 31), despite boosting revenue 230% year-on-year to $23.8 million.

As Prelea says: “We would be more than breaking even if you take 25% off that bottom line.”

The company is looking to solve this problem with the building of a new metallurgical complex at Carlibaba.

This facility is likely to be able to process at least 25,000 tonnnes per month, according to Prelea, which, in tandem with mining fresh ore from Carlibaba, could see costs fall dramatically; much further than the 25% related to transport costs.

Vast has recently gone to market looking for $10 million to carry this out and, since releasing positive drilling results at Carlibaba, has seen its financing options increase.

It is now in discussions with metal traders and debt providers to take a significant portion of the funding in return for offtake.

The plant could be operational within 18-24 months from the financing closing, but Vast is already implementing new systems to improve Manaila’s profitability. Copper grades and throughput are improving quarter-by-quarter, while there is potential in the near term to add gold to the production mix following recent gravity processing trials.

Strategically important
One element not yet mentioned is the Baita Plai polymetallic project, a skarn deposit comprising several veins in calcareous sediments in eight distinct pipes.

Vast acquired 80% of Baita Plai in 2015 and has since been working on getting the mining licence transferred from the state body that took it when the previous miner went into insolvency in 2013.

In August, Vast was granted the right to mine polymetallic ore from Baita Plai and is now awaiting the formal association licence prior to beginning mining operations.

The process has taken longer than the company expected but, as Prelea says, the modest care and maintenance costs the company has incurred are far outweighed by what Baita Plai could offer Vast in the near, medium and long term as its third operating mine.

“From an economic point of view, you’re talking about a concentrate that has value in excess of three times the copper concentrate value we’re getting out of Manaila,” he says.

A GKZ resource, the Russian equivalent to JORC, on Baita Plai shows a 1.8 million tonne resource grading 2.19% Cu, 128g/t Ag, 3.46% Zn, 3.07% Pb and 1.41g/t Au, which the company would look to turn into a JORC-compliant number as soon as possible.

It comes with crushing, milling and flotation circuits, a tailings dam, three access shafts and an active mine level (gallery), plus access to above-ground infrastructure like railways and rail wagons.

“To replace that in today’s terms would be at least $60-70 million,” Prelea says. “Strategically, I think it is very important.”

As the company’s experience on Baita Plai shows, operating in Romania can be a little tricky.

The legislation needs updating and data access could be improved, but Prelea believes other companies will follow Vast’s lead in good time.

“I’m certain that as soon as the mining legislation changes and access to data opens up, we will see a lot more players here,” he says.

With all of these developments on the table, plus a 25% stake in a growing gold story in Zimbabwe, it is no wonder Prelea thinks Vast can buck the typical junior miner trend and become a much bigger player.

“By design, the purpose of a junior mining company is to get into jurisidicitions and pave the way for the majors to come in and scoop up the assets once they are operational, viable and all of the red tape has been cut,” he says.

“The difference is, we want to transition from junior into mid tier by leveraging off our current first-mover advantage.

[saturn5] 23/10/2017 20:00

Vast therefore ready to move on up

[tidy 2] 23/10/2017 19:55

They were left with 3,942,728 shares following this disposal.

[tidy 2] 23/10/2017 19:53

Following this offload they've basically got nothing left if anything they are completely out now.

[glenkaz] 23/10/2017 19:04

Take it another way it has closed higher each day! Gla! 🤡👍

[glenkaz] 23/10/2017 18:41

They are below 3% don't have to report anything now unless they buy again and put them above 3% my guess is they have dumped the rest today and no further notification is nessassry!!!!! It's done and priced in! That's why we were seeing big rise and pullback! Each day! Think you will now see arise over 1p maybe this week! They have taken profits and moved on! 🤡✌A039;

[yorgi] 23/10/2017 18:34

If they have stopped. I would imagine they have been trickling them into the market and it is possible they are out since issuing the TR1. I do agree on the face of it it does look a little odd but I doubt they have stopped, we will see.

It will be interesting to see if Sapi have continued to dump.

[ihavenoclue] 23/10/2017 18:27

Why dump so many shares and then stop with 3m remaining ? Very strange IMHO

Share price has done very well to swallow the size of the shares sold.

[glenkaz] 23/10/2017 18:26

Disagree gwmo had 2 placing in 3 days last 160 except it to be jumped on tomorrow and here of course 🤡✌A039;

[glenkaz] 23/10/2017 17:11

What tomorrow spike 90 close 80🤔

[yorgi] 23/10/2017 16:33

Yes one some number of shares dumped.

Two in the top leader board today.......good start to the week 😊

[dudleym1975] 23/10/2017 16:29

All well I'll take 14% up finish any day Still have 4 more trading days left

[7rademark] 23/10/2017 16:28

im already in gwmo, hard to buy

[ihavenoclue] 23/10/2017 16:25

Bloody hell they have dumped 178m shares since last RNS

[temmujin] 23/10/2017 16:22

great western flying up 24%now

[chesty1] 23/10/2017 16:21

Buyers picking this up into close massive volume again