
Stage of Development: Production, Development
Commodity: Graphite
Country/Region: Tanzania
Market Cap: USD 18.0M
Website: Black Rock Mining
Black Rock Mining (ASX:BKT) is developing the Mahenge graphite project in Tanzania and has 4 key competitive advantages over most of its peers:
1) Tier 1 Scale: The Mahenge graphite project is very large… with a resource of over 200mt and the 2nd largest reserve in the world
2) More large flake: Mahenge has a higher proportion of higher-value large flake than most of the mines in production – this is the equivalent of having a byproduct credit BKT’s peers don’t have.
3) 1st Quartile Costs: Mahenge is expected to a very low-cost mine due to our access to competitively-priced hydro-dominated grid power at around 8USc/kWh, which also means low-carbon footprint graphite products
4) Backed by POSCO: POSCO is the largest global anode producer outside China and is BKT’s major shareholder, offtake partner and has signed agreements to provide US$50m in funding (US$10m prepay + US$40m of equity)
The Company also has US$179m of debt in place with DBSA, IDC and CRDB. Mahenge is shovel ready subject to securing the balance of finance and has all key Govt agreements and permits in place.
There is substantial upside potential if the Company can execute as Mahenge has an NPV10 of A$2.1bn at Expert Consensus prices.
Management Profile
John de Vries, CEO
Mr. de Vries in a Mining Engineer with ~40 years’ experience in the resources sector. He started his career in 1984 working for WMC Resources and held operational roles such as Underground Manager, Senior Mining Engineer and Manager Mining. In 1998, he moved to AMC Consultants to become a Principal Mining Engineer responsible for Mine Optimisation. In 2003, he joined Orica Mining Services as Global Business Manager, Advanced Mining Solutions before moving to BHP Billiton in 2007 as Manager Strategic Mine Planning.
What are your key goals for the next 3, 6 and 12 months?
3 Months
Finalise Project funding package ASAP and begin construction
6 Months
Finalise Project funding package within the next 3 months and begin construction
12 Months
Finalise Project funding package within the next 3 months and begin construction
What do you think makes your company such a compelling investment?