jbowman
This stock is so illiquid, so tightly held that there will likely be plenty of days with no trading. With light trading can be decent price moves (another $70m market cap stock I was close to buying into recently went up 5% in a day, on $400 of volume). Like so many speccies, IRC will run hard on good news and slowly drop back on no news, as the more skittish holders dump at times pretty much like now. Except that I am overweight on this stock already, I would see the current price as a great (perhaps near to last) opportunity for me to accumulate some more on better terms than had been available for the last few weeks.
Going back to a longterm WVL price chart YT posted on this thread 9th April 08, if IRC were to tread the same path as WVL, think of IRC as 3 years from production (and think that the next 12 months coming up for IRC is where WVL went from 20c to $1.50). How's about if Mike Ruane designs/patents the process this year, and gets offtake/JV talks underway. Then wrap the scoping study/bankable feasability study/whatever it's called, sign up offtake/JV and build pilot plant in 2009. Then build initial mine in 2010.
I say initial because I would hope speed to market is high in the minds of IRC management- if production can be up and running fast then all other planned vanadium projects worldwide could be shelved much more easily, even if Rio discover more of this monster deposit next door to IRC. If a Windamurra-sized mine needs to be added to world production each year to keep pace with growth in vanadium demand, better that it is IRC adding this much production. I am very much a fan of the Microsoft/Intel approach (their original offerings were not the best around, they got it out there quicker and came back to quality later).
I understand Dr Ruane prefers to take his time and do it right. I daresay the rest of the directors of IRC (rightly, for now) indulge him on this, but (and Mike, if you're reading, absolutely no offence is meant here) he is a chemical engineer, a critical talent for getting Julia Creek to being an economic proposition, but once such designs/flowsheets/pilot plants are complete, the baton passes to project managers and finance wonks (this is where I hope the pace gets a rocket).
The volumes that would exit the Julia Creek mine likely would not need rail transport the way say iron or coal would, but it looks like the railroad from Mt Isa to Townsville runs through the edge of the lease. The mine would be a bit over 100km from Cloncurry (pop 4,500) so there is a better daily quality of life for the staff (particularly families) than the really remote fly-in fly-out camps (this is a really important plus in the competition for skilled mining labour, won't quote how I know). Just up from Cloncurry is Mt Isa, with all the mining services and suppliers IRC could need on an ongoing basis. I don't know what the energy supply situation in the greater Mt Isa region is, but if WA is any guide (where pipelines for NW Shelf gas are getting laid to feed Pilbara/Midwest/Kalgoorlie industry) then the massive coal seam gas reserves of central Qld may be convenient. So I see location has a number of pluses compared to some of the mining developments mooted in the current boom (and there is going to be a growing number of worthy mining projects ditched over the next few years due to insufficient capacity and input price inflation).
I take heart from Young_Trader saying IRC "had to be in my portfolio", he is one of the most indepth researchers on ASF. I'm a tad worried why he calls it a "dark horse" though- YT? Is it due to the particularly low valuation the market has given a resource of this size (hence it considering it particularly risky)? And I will take "potential to do a CDU" to be more of a reflection of how their massive deposit caused a massive sp hike, than how their management were fast and loose with the truth.