Quentin Flannery

This is a great step forward for Metallica and their Cape Flattery silica sand project. This major milestone brings them one step closer to permitting and production in early 2023 in what we strongly believe is shaping up to be one of the most exciting decades for the development of high purity silica sand projects. With the continued outlawing of riverbed sand mining in the developing world and the volume of construction and renewables build-out we are seeing, the demand for these products is only going to grow and Metallica along with Diatreme, and their unique high-quality Cape Flattery product, are extremely well-positioned to capture a premium place in the global market. We have just gone to 17.5% of Metallica and are strongly committed to seeing this mine come into production in the near future.

Goldman Sachs — Copper is the new oil

This is a great read for anyone who is in doubt about the dynamics playing out in the copper markets and what that could mean for the price in the near to medium term. New mines are simply not being brought on fast enough, and supply dynamics look quite ordinary when considering the declining grade of copper at the largest operations in Latin America.

With additional demand driven from the green push for electrification and transition to renewable energy sources, the copper market faces the perfect storm, resulting in strong price volatility and a significant price response on the upside.

Ilwella is pleased to announce that we are supporting Metallica Minerals (ASX: MLM) in the next development phase of its silica sand project. This project will be undertaken in the world-class Cape Flattery Dune field, in North Queensland. The silica sand at Cape Flattery Dune is of the highest quality globally, and with demand for ultra-clear flat glass for solar panels as strong as ever, the site is well-positioned to capitalise on the increasingly enterprising solar market.

Demand is equally strong for the use of silica sand in other glass-making industries, including fibre-optics, LCD panels, LED lights and electronics. Silica sand is one of the most used commodities on the planet, and there are just a handful of ASX small caps with projects in silica sand, pushing Australia to compete on the global stage in this industry.

Metallica Minerals has raised $4.9M in total to advance the development of its Cape Flattery Dune project, with $2.2M committed by Ilwella. These are very exciting times for Metallic Minerals and the Queensland and Australian resource industries. We look forward to being a long-term investor in this project and seeing it in full production.

See the full announcement from Metallica Minerals below.

Earlier this week, Montem Resources reported the completion of its 2020 drill program at Chinook Vicary, in which all drill holes have intersected thick coal seams, confirming near-surface, structurally thickened zones of coal.

It’s great to see Peter and the team at Montem Resources delivering their first strong drilling results after the listing.

We are excited to see the quality assays for this sample when it comes in later this year, we’re confident it will show that Montem is sitting on some high quality hard coking coal assets.

We are still strongly of the view that the area around Crowsnest Pass in Canada is going to be a premier hard coking coal hub in years to come and will be highly sought after by major global steel mills looking for geographical and supplier diversification.

Good work Pete and keep going!

Also have to say this (below) is one of the best drill core photos I think I have ever seen, just another coal bloke and his stick of coal!

Ilwella has subscribed for $1.65 million or 37 per cent of this placement, taking our shareholding up to 19.9%.

We are pleased to continue to support Diatreme as it advances its Galalar Silica Project. An important economic development for North Queensland, the project aims to become a material supplier to the solar energy industry which continues to grow at an extraordinary rate. Given the immense pressure to decarbonise the economy and shift to renewables, we don’t see any signs of this growth slowing down any time soon. We see high grade silica sands as a huge opportunity for the future and Galalar as one of the best mines to capitalise on this opportunity.

This is what we have been saying for the past few months and why we are so bullish on commodities which will benefit from an infrastructure spend.

Most of the focus in managing the economic impacts of COVID-19 so far have been consumption led i.e. giving money to the population to get the economy moving. This is going to shift as we start to move beyond COVID-19 into massive amounts of infrastructure spend. This will be either government funded or through rapid approvals of private projects across the world, either way it will mean we are potentially looking at an 18–24 month bull run across the board in commodities for the first time in many years.

This article is a great example of what we think will continue to happen, money for major infra projects is starting to flow!!

Montem Resources listed yesterday under the ASX code MR1. The current environment is not very coal friendly, but we are still strong believers when it comes to investing in the next generation of high quality hard coking coal assets.

Montem, along with Atrum Coal are two listed companies in this area around the Crowsnest Pass in Alberta, Canada showing great promise with their exploration assets. This area is in a unique position to be a new, large Tier 1 Hard Coking Coal producing region. Our view is that in the next decade this whole area will be opened up as a new, high quality coking coal producing area with the potential to supplant some of the declining grades of coking coal from areas like Australia’s Bowen Basin. Given the very low stripping ratios being found here at Atrum’s Isolation South area and expected to be found in Montem’s Isola and Four Stack areas of similar geology, the production costs should be on par if not better than, global first quartile cost metallurgical coals, and the proximity to Vancouver gives a path to large Asian Mills desperate for more geographical and company diversification away from major Australian producers such as BMA who dominate the market and pricing.

We still see a strong demand profile for metallurgical coal given the world requirements for steel and the timeframes it will take for new steelmaking technologies to supplant existing blast furnaces run on coke. You can’t build gigafactories or make EV’s without steel, at least not on the scale that will be required over the coming years and for the prices demanded by the majority of consumers. While the push at the moment is for a strong anti-coal agenda, regardless of use, the reality is that consumer demand for steel in everyday use is still strong and will continue to drive the demand profiles supporting strong metallurgical coal prices moving forward. That makes high quality assets such as Montems and Atrums front of mind for future competitive development.

Congratulations to Chris and the team at Field Orthopaedics for coming up with this novel solution to a problem being experienced by medical professionals with existing masks on the market.

The silicone cup on the inside of these masks makes these very comfortable to wear for 8 hours and protects the wearer, as opposed to existing masks only protecting others around the wearer.

This is a big step forward in protecting front line workers!

AuMake (ASX:AU8) announced this morning that it has selected JieZhou as the preferred technology partner to develop its exciting next generation e-Commerce platform, facilitating the transacting and distribution of Australian products into Chinese networks.

Partnering with JieZhou on this project is a huge opportunity due to their immense experience with leading online digital businesses globally, and means that the e-Commerce platform will be well equipped with exciting market-leading innovations such as a patented digital customs clearance system, improving the customs clearance process and delivery times for end-customers in China.

JieZhou is also extremely well-resourced, being part-owned by Ant Financial, one of the largest fintech’s in the world (valued at over US$150bn), which is in turn part-owned by Alibaba.

The new platform presents a substantial opportunity in the Australian daigou market, fundamentally changing the way that people transact in the industry, and we are all very excited for the launch in October this year.

This is a great piece on Carawine Resources (ASX:CWX) from Dr Chris Baker at Bridge Street Capital showing the exciting potential for the Paterson ground CWX has farmed out to majors like Rio Tinto.

Rio is going to start drilling there next month, so hopefully there is some positive news flow shortly after. When you look at the potential of the Victorian assets and the exciting blue sky potential from the Paterson and Fraser Range JV’s, it surprises me that CWX is still not catching much of a bid with a market cap around ~$17m. They have a quality management team who are more focussed on the assets and not on promoting as much as some others in their space.

I think this is definitely one to watch over the next 12 months.