Key Investment Highlights:
- Exposure to the ‘green’ movement: exposure to the growing EV and Lithium-ion battery thematic through the up-stream production of nickel and downstream production of NCM811 precursor battery products
- District scale Ni sulphide opportunity: BSX’s flagship asset, Ta Khoa, located in Northern Vietnam, comprises up to 25 massive sulphide vein (MSV) and disseminated sulphide (DSS) targets, leading to attractive project economics and long-term life of mine
- Pre-Feasibility Study: recently released a compelling PFS on the downstream nickel refining facility in Vietnam. The project was placed into care and maintenance due to a low nickel price and overly onerous Government tariffs on nickel concentrate exports. To counter these tariffs, BSX investigated the downstream processing of nickel concentrates into battery precursor products which has opened the door to whole new nickel refining opportunity (economics below)
- Substantial nickel production: the downstream facility contemplated in the PFS is designed to produce 85.6ktpa of NCM811 precursor from a nickel concentrate throughput of 400ktpa. This is the equivalent of producing 43.5ktpa of nickel metal. The operating life has been limited to 10 years based on the concentrate feed from the Ta Khoa nickel project which will deliver less than half the required nickel concentrate, the rest to be sourced from third parties
- Project Economics: The 10-year PFS shows revenue of US$14bn and a net cash flow after tax of US$3.6bn. Cash costs as stated in NCM811 tonne, are US$11,125/t with an estimated realised NCM811 price of US$16,397/t. Capex is slated at US$491m and the project has a post-tax NPV8 of $3.6bn
- Scalable and modular downstream refinery: Blackstone’s intention is to collaborate with Tier 1 partners to unlock the value of its expanded downstream refinery strategy, initially in Vietnam with future potential to enact a global strategy
