Salt plus potash plus iron equals value

BCI Minerals (formerly BC Iron) is an ASX-listed resources company, with interests in salt, potash and iron ore projects in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. After being incorporated in 2006, it entered into the Nullagine joint venture with Fortescue Metals in 2009, which operated for five years and resulted in BCI paying dividends to shareholders in FY12–14. Nullagine was suspended in December 2015. However, during this period, BCI acquired Iron Ore Holdings, including the key assets of Iron Valley, Buckland and Mardie. Three years later, it also acquired a number of under-explored West Pilbara tenements from Mineralogy Pty including Kumina. Iron Valley has since been developed into a mine, operated by Mineral Resources (MIN) and from which BCI derives a royalty-type income stream. After completing a positive PFS on Mardie in June 2018, BCI made the decision to concentrate on its salt assets and commenced a formal divestment process of its iron ore assets, starting with Kumina, which it sold for A$35m in December 2018.

A summary of our valuation of the constituent parts of BCI is as follows:

BCI reported net cash on its balance sheet of A$36.6m at end-December 2018 after receiving A$27m from the sale of the Kumina assets in December. The next 24 months will be characterised by higher c A$25m investment in Mardie. This will be partly offset by a higher iron ore price (see pages 11–16). Nevertheless, it will be more than sufficient to carry the project to a final investment decision in early CY20. Within this context, we estimate that BCI will finish FY19 with A$27.8m in net cash on its balance sheet.

Although it is not the largest component of the whole, it is parameters relating to Mardie to which our valuation of BCI is most sensitive. Over the life of the operation, we estimate that adoption of expanded operating parameters at Mardie (see page 21) increases our valuation by 9.32c/sh, while a ±10% change in forex changes the valuation by ±7.20c/sh, ahead of a ±10% change in the salt price, which changes our valuation by ±5.22c/sh and a ±10% change in the SOP price, which changes our valuation by ±1.48c/sh. While the passage of time increases our valuation to as high as 68.46c per share in FY28, in the shorter term it increases to c 60c/share in the event of either reduced assumed equity funding of the Mardie project and/or increasing the price at which that funding is assumed to occur.

Incorporated in July 2006, BCI Minerals (formerly BC Iron) is an ASX-listed resources company, with interests in iron ore, salt, potash, gold and base metals projects, concentrated in the Pilbara region in Western Australia. BCI began operations by conducting drill tests in its fully owned Nullagine iron ore project in 2007 and completed a feasibility study in July 2009. Subsequently, in August 2009 BCI entered into the Nullagine joint venture (NJV) with Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), commencing production the following year. The NJV operated successfully for five years and delivered c A$100m in dividends to shareholders before the project was suspended in December 2015 owing to low iron ore prices. Later, in March 2017, BCI’s 75% interest in NJV was sold to FMG in return for a royalty on 75% of all future ore mined from Nullagine.

An important transaction was concluded in 2014, when BCI acquired Iron Ore Holdings (IOH) via an off-market takeover offer. The key assets transferred through this takeover were Iron Valley and Buckland (both being advanced iron ore projects in the Pilbara), Mardie and a selection of other exploration tenements.

In 2016, BCI adopted a new strategy focused on growth and portfolio diversification. As a consequence, in the beginning of 2017, it entered into a JV with Kalium Lakes for the Carnegie Project with the objective of becoming a significant player in the emerging Australian potash industry. BCI secured the rights to earn up to 50% interest in this potash exploration project by funding the exploration and development expenditure required to feasibility study level. At the same time, in July 2017, it announced the results of a scoping study into its 100%-owned Mardie salt project in the Pilbara region. Then, in September 2017, it secured a number of under-explored West Pilbara iron ore tenements from Mineralogy Pty including Kumina.

The 2018 calendar year proved to be a transformational one for BCI. In June, it announced a positive pre-feasibility study on Mardie (now incorporating both salt and SOP production potential), after which it commenced a DFS. The same month, it also completed a maiden JORC mineral resource estimate at Kumina of 115.2Mt at a grade of 58.0% Fe, after which it received expressions of interest from ‘multiple’ parties seeking to acquire assets in the region. In August therefore, BCI announced that it had commenced a formal divestment process for its iron ore asset portfolio, including Iron Valley, Kumina, Bungaroo South, Cape Preston East port rights and a number of other iron ore exploration tenements. Simultaneously, it announced that its primary focus will henceforth be developing a salt and potash business, focusing on Mardie.

In October, BCI announced the sale of Kumina for A$35m (A$27m in cash plus A$4m deferred until the first export of iron ore from the tenements, with a further A$4m deferred for another 12 months thereafter), which equates to 37.4 US cents per tonne of contained iron at Kumina (right at the top of Edison’s potential valuation range, taking into account both grade and potential blue-sky exploration upside), or 8.8 Australian cents per BCI share. The sale completed in December, whereupon BCI duly received its A$27m initial consideration such that its net cash position at that point was c A$37m.

At the current time therefore, BCI is receiving earnings from Iron Valley, while simultaneously advancing its Mardie project and seeking buyers for Buckland.

BCI’s stated intent is now to develop a salt and potash business as its primary focus in the near term. Funds realised from the iron ore divestment process will enable BCI to rapidly progress the Mardie DFS and maintain 100% ownership through to a target final investment decision date in early 2020.

The location of the company’s principal assets is presented in Exhibit 2 below.

The Mardie project is located on the West Pilbara coast, between Dampier (95km north-east of Mardie) and Onslow (90km south-west of Mardie), which is Australia’s major solar salt production and export region, including operations such as Rio Tinto’s Dampier Salt (the world’s largest single salt exporter). BCI intends to develop the project into a long-life operation, producing both salt and SOP via the solar evaporation of seawater.

The region is favourable for oceanic salt extraction operations because of its access to natural channels that feed seawater to the project area and a low-permeability, flat landscape that is suitable for constructing evaporation ponds. The region’s windy, hot and dry climate is classified as ‘grassland’ by the Bureau of Meteorology, which means it experiences hot weather throughout the year with a summer drought. The Mardie tenements, in particular, comprise extremely flat mudflat topographies behind the coastal mangroves. The project has five granted exploration licences and one exploration licence application, encompassing a total area of 912km2.

A scoping study released in July 2017 by BCI demonstrated positive results for developing a 3–3.5Mtpa operation to produce high-purity, industrial-grade sodium chloride salt from seawater for onward sale to the chlor-alkali industry. The study assessed a 20-year mine life, although the project could potentially operate (effectively) almost indefinitely, given that the input resource is seawater. Capital expenditure was estimated at A$225–255m with an accuracy of ±35%. Operating costs were expected to be c A$19–21/t on a free-on-board (FOB) basis, which generated a pre-tax NPV of A$290–380m over a 20-year life at a 10% discount rate and a pre-tax IRR of 25–27%. The study assumed the export of salt via the Cape Preston East Port. In due course, it was observed that Mardie could also benefit from synergies with BCI’s Carnegie project, which has a similar pond design principle and processing and marketing dynamics.

The results of the Mardie PFS were announced in June 2018. As per the July 2017 scoping study, the ultimate aim of the project was presumed to be the production of 3.5Mtpa of high-purity, industrial-grade sodium chloride salt and 75ktpa of SOP from seawater via solar evaporation, crystallisation and purification. The salt was then presumed to be exported via a purpose-built transhipping operation at BCI’s planned Cape Preston East Port (note: SOP, see below, was presumed to be exported from the existing general cargo wharf at Port Dampier). The study was conducted in conjunction with at least 18 external consultants, including Salt Partners, Roskill and Braemar Shipping Services, with the objective of improving the scoping study design footprint, reducing technical and approval risks and evaluating the viability of a SOP processing flowsheet in addition to the salt one. A range of field studies, sampling and test-work programmes and surveys were undertaken regionally and locally to define the project design criteria and operational and capital cost estimates were undertaken to an accuracy of -15% to +25%, qualifying it as equal to, or better than, an AACE Class 4 estimate, as defined under Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering Recommended Practice Number 18R-97 (ie a pre-feasibility study).

The Mardie site has all the natural hydrological, climatic, topographical and geotechnical prerequisites for the production of salt and SOP from solar evaporation. In addition, it is also ideally situated to access Asia’s key growth markets.

Critical geotechnical requirements for the construction of 89km2 of concentrator and crystalliser ponds are:

The tests conducted in the context of the PFS have allowed BCI to conclude that a low-permeability layer is extensive across the proposed pond footprint and that construction materials for the pond walls are available.

Similarly, hydrogeological studies have concluded that:

Sodium chloride salt

A seawater pump will extract 132 billion litres (132 x 109 litres or 132Gl – approximately 135.8Mt) of seawater, containing c 5.4Mt of salts (containing c 4.2Mt of sodium chloride and 135kt of SOP equivalent) per year and transfer it to the first of eight concentrator ponds. The seawater will then progress from Pond 1 to Pond 8 over a period of approximately one year (similar to lithium salt extraction from the South American salars), at which point solar evaporation will have reduced it to 12% of its original volume and its specific gravity will have increased to 1.216g/cm3 (ie close to the point of salt crystallisation). From Pond 8, 18Gl of concentrated seawater (augmented by a recycled stream from the SOP production circuit) containing 4.8Mt of sodium chloride per year will be deposited into a series of 12 crystalliser ponds, from where 3.8Mtpa of raw salt will be crystallised at specific gravities of 1.227–1.250g/cm3. At a specific gravity of 1.250g/cm3, the crystallisers are drained and raw sodium chloride salt is dry harvested for treatment in the salt purification plant. The bitterns drained from the crystallisers total 6.0Gl per year and contain 1.0Mt of residual sodium chloride salt and 130kt of SOP equivalent (see below). The dry harvested salt is then hauled to a 700tph purification plant, designed by Salt Partners, using its proprietary HYDROSAL-XP salt purification process to minimise product losses (c 2–3% cf 20% via traditional methods) and maximise contaminant rejection to result in a high product purity of 99.7% on a dry basis. Finally, product is stockpiled at Mardie for up to six months to assist in dewatering and product quality. Total product losses of 7% have been assumed in the study, from harvesting to export, to result in annual saleable production of 3.5Mtpa (note that the DFS is aiming to increase this by 14.3% to 4.0Mtpa).

SOP

The 6.0Gl of bitterns containing 1.0Mt of sodium chloride salt and 130ktpa of SOP equivalent (see above) is pumped to four parallel streams of nine sequential secondary crystallisers. The first four of the nine crystallisers will be primarily employed in precipitating mainly sodium chloride salt (albeit with sufficient contaminants to make it unsuitable for immediate purification), which is then re-dissolved in seawater before being returned to Concentrator Pond 7 (see above). Crystallisers 5 and 6 will crystallise a mixed salt with a low potassium content that is considered waste. Kainite-type mixed salts will then form in Crystallisers 7 and 8, with the final Crystalliser 9 being allowed to hold surplus liquor. The Kainite-type mixed salts are then dry harvested from each crystalliser and hauled to the stockyard and stockpiled separately, whence they are blended to provide a consistent feed for the SOP plant. The SOP plant crushes, screens and re-dissolves the Kainite-type mixed salts and subjects them to a solid/liquid separation process to remove the majority of the sodium chloride (which is returned to the crystallisers) to form a Schoenite mother liquor, which then proceeds to decomposition, washing, concentration and drying to become SOP product at a rate of 75ktpa for the purposes of the PFS, but potentially up to 100ktpa, with less conservative recovery assumptions, which is the aim of the DFS currently underway. SOP destined for overseas markets will then be bulk packaged on site and trucked to the general cargo wharf at Port Dampier for export in sea containers. Sales into the domestic Australian market will occur via road transport and/or coastal shipping.

Waste disposal

Waste, primarily in the form of bitterns and low potassium mixed salts from Crystallisers 5 and 6, will be transferred to a holding pond for dilution in seawater, prior to pumping via pipeline over the tidal flats into deeper water, where the waste liquid will be released through a purpose-designed diffuser.

The PFS assumed that the proposed Cape Preston East Port (CPE) will be constructed by BCI subsidiary, Cape Preston Logistics Pty (CPL) and will be expanded for salt export in addition to iron ore export. Within this context, product stockpiles at Mardie were presumed to be connected to CPE via a 19km sealed private project access road, which connects with a 48km section of BCI’s proposed sealed private road. However, management is also pursuing government support for the development of an export jetty at Mardie as an alternative to trucking salt c 70km to CPE. Internally, management expects this initiative to reduce opex costs by c A$4/t (or c 20%) as a result of eliminating haulage, operational simplifications and less process duplication, albeit at the expense of a c A$65m increase in capex. We understand the Mardie export jetty solution will form the basis of the DFS. The economic consequences of such an initiative are considered in the sensitivities section, on pages 20–22, below.

Critical ancillary infrastructure for the development of the project may be summarised as follows:

The project has a five-year development timeline, from the completion of the PFS to first salt production in 2023. BCI plans to optimise the development timeline during the BFS and also to investigate opportunities to accelerate the schedule. To date, however, the project is planned to occur on a ‘just-in-time’ basis, commencing in early 2020. Key scheduled milestones are as follows:

Key features of the Mardie project are that it is set back from the coast, thereby avoiding coastal vegetation as well as affording protection from cyclone-induced storm surges. The final environmental surveys relating to the project are currently underway. During the course of the Mardie PFS, at least 14 environmental studies were conducted, which resulted in the following modifications to the project compared with its original scope:

Otherwise, a number of approvals will be required from a range of both State and Federal government departments, including the Department of the Environment & Energy (DOTEE), the Department of Water & Environmental Regulation (DWER), the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation & Safety and the Department of Planning, Lands & Heritage. Significantly, during the December 2018 quarter, the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) approved the Mardie project’s environmental scoping document, which sets out the scope and content of the environmental review document (ERD) required to be submitted as part of the approval process. On the basis that the ERD is submitted by April 2019, the EPA endorsed a timeline whereby the EPA’s assessment report is released by the end of 2019, allowing full Ministerial approval by early 2020.

The licences comprising the Mardie project are covered by the claim areas of the Yaburara Mardudhunera and Kuruma Marthudunera native title claim groups. BCI has longstanding and strong relationships with both groups and existing land access deeds. In addition, it has completed a detailed heritage survey during the course of its PFS, in order to ensure the minimum disruption of sacred sites.

During the December 2018 quarter, BCI completed a positive heritage survey with the Yaburara and Mardudhunera people that covers approximately 90% of the project footprint. The result of the survey is that BCI has now received the required heritage-related consents to proceed with construction and operation activity in these areas, subject to relocation of some artefacts and preservation of a heritage site, which does not affect the planned project footprint. The company plans to complete a further heritage survey with the Kuruma Marthudunera people in the March 2019 quarter to cover the remaining 10% of the project’s footprint area.

Mardie has four important competitive advantages over its rivals:

Iron Valley is an operating mine located in the Central Pilbara region that has been in production since October 2014. It has a relatively simple deposit geometry with a low waste to ore stripping ratio and produces both lump and fines that are transported to Port Hedland by trains and exported via Utah Point. At June 2018, it had reserves and resources capable of supporting a simple direct shipment operation with a life of c 13 years at current production rates of c 7.5Mtpa.

Until August 2014, Iron Valley was a part of IOH and had a mine gate sale arrangement with MIN whereby the latter bore the operating expenses and purchased Iron Valley product at prices linked to MIN’s realised sale price – an arrangement that BCI retained after its acquisition of IOH in October 2014 (albeit with minor amendments). Note that BCI retains ownership of the tenements and certain statutory obligations, including payment of government, state and third-party royalties. The arrangement with MIN effectively means that BCI receives a royalty-type income stream from Iron Valley. Sales and earnings figures attributable to BCI from Iron Valley since 2014 have been as follows:

Until recently, BCI’s received royalty was based on MIN’s received price for Iron Valley iron ore, whereas its paid royalty to the State Government, in particular, was based on an indexed price – a mechanism that gave rise to apparent anomalies and subsequent adjustments to BCI’s net income from Iron Valley. To correct this income volatility, BCI management engaged with State Government in the June quarter of 2018 and negotiated an agreement to alter the calculation of its paid royalties from an indexed price to a received price basis – with the result that net income from Iron Valley to BCI in recent quarters appears much smoother than in previous quarters and to approach an A$1/t approximation relative to wet metric tonne production.

MIN is seeking to implement an enhanced logistics solution for Iron Valley known as the Pilbara Infrastructure Project, which comprises an innovative 330km lightweight, narrow gauge rail transport system connecting to automated port infrastructure at Port Hedland with fully autonomous c 120t payload shuttles. Once operational, potential gains would include lower operating expenses and doubled production rates to 15Mtpa, leading to a direct benefit to BCI in the form of a corresponding increase in royalty payments as well as an indirect benefit in the form of Iron Valley’s becoming a more economically efficient operation.

Once appropriate state approvals have been received, construction of the project is likely to take 18 months before the system becomes operational. Note that for the purposes of our sensitivities’ sections on pages 20–22, in which we consider the valuation implications of a doubling of the sales rate at Iron Valley, we assume that construction of the Pilbara Infrastructure Project would be complete at the end of FY20, that commissioning and ramp-up would occur in FY21 and that full capacity will be reached in FY22.

According to the US Geological Survey, Australia was the seventh largest producer of salt in the world, in 2015, after China, USA, India, Germany, Canada and Chile. In crude terms, China accounts for 25.9% of global production of c 270Mtpa, followed by the USA with 16.7%. The next six largest producers (including Australia) produce c 4–7% each of global production. Within this context, Mardie’s proposed output of up to 4.0Mtpa accounts for approximately 1.5% of global output, or a more material 36.4% of existing Australian capacity.

Salt is commonly associated with the food (9% of total demand) and de-icing (12%) industries, of which it forms an important component. Its largest use, however, is industrial (54% of demand) primarily as an input into the chlor-alkali process, whereby high-purity brine solution is electrolysed to form chlorine, caustic soda and hydrogen. These, in turn, become inputs into the PVC, plastics and paper industries, among others. As with other commodities, therefore, there is a causative association between global economic growth (and especially that in the developing world and Asia in the form of an increasingly large and increasingly prosperous middle class) and salt demand. According to consultants Roskill (quoted in BCI’s Mardie PFS announcement on 1 June 2018), demand for salt in 2017 was 339Mt, of which approximately 46% was accounted for by Asia, which is forecast to increase by 37.4%, or 58Mt, over the 10 years to 213Mt in 2027 (ie a compound rate of growth of 3.2% per year). During the same period, supply is anticipated to increase by 32Mtpa – impaired, among other things, by pressure on land in Asia for solar evaporation projects – creating a 26Mtpa supply-side shortfall and driving prices from below US$40/t currently (CIF) to c US$50/t (cf ‘a realistic average longer-term freight rate of US$13/t’).

In contrast to common salt, SOP is a premium fertiliser that is used as a source of potassium for high-value crops that are intolerant to the chlorine contained in fertilisers such as muriate of potash (KCl, or potassium chloride). SOP also has the benefit of contributing sulphur (another key macro-ingredient) to the plant.

SOP is typically manufactured by one of three methods: the Mannheim process (c 50% of supply), solar evaporation (30% of supply) and other (20% of supply). In contrast to solar evaporation, the Mannheim process reacts sulphuric acid with potassium chloride to produce sodium sulphate and hydrogen chloride, which is driven off in a furnace in gaseous form. Owing to its greater chemical intensity, the Mannheim process is almost invariably more expensive than comparable processes, with the purchase of chemicals accounting for approximately 80% of costs and fuel accounting for an additional 10%. In consequence, the Mardie solar evaporation method of SOP production is expected to result in its being placed well within the lowest cost quartile of SOP producers globally.

The total potash market in 2016 was estimated to be approximately 68Mt, of which muriate of potash (MOP) accounted for 85%, SOP 10% and other products 4%. In common with salt, the major drivers of SOP demand are the increasing, and increasingly prosperous, Asian middle class in addition to the consideration that increasing crop yields are required from remaining cultivatable land, after urbanisation. The 7.1Mtpa SOP market, in particular, is forecast by Integer Research (quoted by BCI on 1 June 2018) to expand by 11.3%, to 7.9Mtpa in 2027 (a compound annual growth rate of 1.0% per year over 11 years), with South Asia – primarily India – accounting for substantially all of the growth, coupled with an increasing trend of substituting SOP for MOP. BCI proposes to market its Mardie SOP both domestically and regionally, to South-East Asia, and adopted a price of US$500/t (FOB Dampier) for the purposes of its PFS.

China dominates both the global steel market and the global iron ore market. However, while it is prima facie the world’s largest domestic producer of iron ore, mine production for China is based on crude ore, rather than usable ore. Moreover, Chinese iron ore is of an inferior grade compared to other major producers around the world, with an iron content of around 17–20%, cf a 62% standard worldwide. As a result, China is also the world’s largest importer of iron ore, with imports of c 1bn tonnes per year accounting for approximately half of global supply and two-thirds of the world’s export trade. In turn, it accounts for c 50% of global steel production.

In recent months, the export price for iron ore has been caught between the expectation that Chinese steelmaking capacity will be cut at the same time as iron ore capacity is being brought on stream, and the reality that actual steel output has continued to prove stubbornly resilient.

Expectations of a cut in steelmaking capacity in particular have been driven by both a suite of smog restrictions imposed by Beijing, which is expected to result in the closure of ageing, high-polluting steel mills and induction furnaces, and a perceived desire to curb overcapacity in the sector. As a result, in April 2018, the country’s top steelmaking city of Tangshan ordered steel mills to cut 50% of their sintering capacity over and above the existing output restrictions in place until November, as a bout of pollution was expected to blanket the city and the surrounding Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Emergency measures in Tangshan were effective from 15 April and it is reported that the authorities are considering an extension of the output restrictions by six months after the earlier curbs appeared to have little effect on pollution.

One explanation for the absence of obvious capacity reductions may be that downstream demand remained buoyed by strong demand at construction sites in the south and east in H118. Since then, there has been evidence of a weakening property market in China (which accounts for c 40% of demand) in conjunction with a slowdown in more general economic conditions. This has been somewhat offset by efforts by China’s central bank to stimulate activity. However, it has also led to speculation that enforcement of the production restrictions may be less robust than officially sanctioned.

Simultaneously however, there have also been disruptions to supply – including the most recent tailings dam disaster in Brazil. Partly as a result (and generally against analysts’ expectations), the iron ore price has demonstrated remarkable resilience, rising by 31.2% since Q316 and being the fifth best performing of 17 (common) metals and minerals over the period:

In conclusion, Rio Tinto has stated that it expects the global iron ore market to stay balanced throughout 2019 despite ‘a likely moderation in steel demand growth in China’, but with a market bias towards high-grade ores, as Chinese steelmakers focus on higher unit productivity and lower emissions per tonne of steel produced. This was an assessment that has largely been echoed by BHP, citing the discount applied to lower-grade ores relative to higher-grade ores as evidence for the change in market dynamics (see Exhibit 10). However, it had been contradicted by Fortescue Metals, which reports that mills have indicated that they will instead seek to source cheaper raw materials in a bid to remain competitive. At the same time, Fabio Schvartsman, the CEO of the world’s largest producer of iron ore, Vale, has indicated that the Brazilian producer would be prepared to withhold capacity in the event of low prices in the market (eg 62% iron ore approaching the US$60/t level) and to supply into high prices (eg 62% iron ore approaching the US$100/t level). Notwithstanding the Australian government’s official position that it expects the price of iron ore to fall in CY19 as Chinese imports level off and new mines, including Vale’s S11D, come online, metals consultant Wood Mackenzie has echoed Vale’s comparatively optimistic outlook, saying it expects the 62% benchmark iron ore price to remain comfortably above US$60/t over the long term. These assessments appear to be largely echoed by financial analysts who are generally forecasting prices in the range US$57–70/t in the period CY19–20 (cf an average price of US$70.13/t recorded for 62% iron ore in CY18).

Finally, within the context of the iron ore market, it would be remiss not to note that, US initiatives last year to impose import duties of 25% on steel products (among other things) on 1 March. The proposal is comparable to a tariff imposed by Mr Trump’s Republican presidential predecessor, George W. Bush in 2002, when the US imposed heavy tariffs on steel imports, but withdrew them again 18 months later after they were perceived as largely ineffectual, or even harmful, to the US economy. By common consent, the initiative was aimed at China and, at the time, President Trump temporarily excluded six countries and the European Union from the duties. However, on 1 June, the move was extended to the European Union, Canada, and Mexico as well, such that the only countries to remain exempted are Australia and Argentina.

In retaliation, China initiated a WTO complaint against the US on 9 April and the EU followed suit on 1 June. Shortly thereafter – and not least in the face of Chinese threats to retaliate – the US and China released a joint statement agreeing to put tariffs on hold. Despite a 90-day armistice, in which the two countries agreed to suspend tariff hikes and work toward a resolution, the arrest of Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer by Canadian authorities at the behest of the US Justice Department has reignited tensions.

An appreciation of current conditions in the iron ore market may be gained by an analysis of the following graphs:

A number of features of these graphs are noteworthy:

The following is a scattergram of the discount of the price of 58% iron ore relative to 62% iron ore in percentage terms plotted against the price of 62% iron ore.

A number of features are noteworthy:

Although BCI has stated that Iron Valley is potentially part of its iron ore divestment process, in formulating our valuation of the company, on account of its cash-generating status, we have chosen to make this asset the core of our initial valuation ‘base case’ scenario and then to build the Mardie project onto that, rather than vice-versa. The implicit assumption therefore is that Iron Valley is worth either its discounted dividend flow valuation to BCI or the cash equivalent if it were to be sold to a third party.

Assumptions we have made relating to BCI’s Iron Valley asset in consideration of this methodology are as follows:

Other assumptions include debtor days (assumed to be 90), stock turnover (assumed to be 730, ie 0.5 stock days) and creditor days (assumed to be 90) in line with recent accounts. Note that variations from the principal assumptions detailed here are considered in the Sensitivities section, below.

Given the assumptions outlined above, our long-term estimates of BCI’s earnings, (maximum potential) dividends per share and valuation trajectory are as follows:

Discounting at 10% per year, the value of these cash flows to shareholders is 19.51 Australian cents per share as at 1 July 2018. Readers should note the disproportionately large maximum potential dividend payable in FY19, reflecting not only cash-flow from Iron Valley but also the potential distribution of the cash earned by BCI as a result of its sale of its Kumina assets earlier in the year. A summary of the proportion of this valuation attributable to Iron Valley, individually, as well as cash, the value of the Kumina sale and centralised corporate costs (excluding exploration) is as follows:

BCI’s contracting strategy is designed to ensure that it has adequate control over key production processes, but that non-production activities (eg road haulage, accommodation, power supply and transhipment) are contracted out. Consequently, these are excluded from Mardie’s capital cost estimate, but are included in its opex estimate. Within this context, the total capex estimate for the Mardie project is A$335m, comprising A$248m for the salt production circuit and A$87m for the SOP production circuit, as follows:

Operating cost estimates have been calculated on an FOB basis, assuming production of 3.5Mtpa salt and 75ktpa SOP:

On the basis of the above assumptions and that salt and SOP prices are US$30/t and US$500/t (as per the Mardie PFS), and that the first full years of production for each are FY24 and FY26, respectively, we estimate the following valuations for the project (assuming a 30% standard rate of corporate tax in Australia):

Note that the extent by which Edison’s pre-tax NPV10 exceeds that of the Mardie PFS can be entirely explained by the effect of the (weaker) forex rate prevailing currently compared with that used in the PFS.

In our report, Gold stars and Black holes: Analysing the discount: From resource to sanction, published in January 2019, we observed that, excluding outliers, the maximum and minimum valuations for companies with projects at different stages of development are as follows (Exhibits 166 and 173 of the original report):

In addition, we were able to show that the valuations of companies with projects at PFS stage have a statistically significant correlation with the projects’ IRRs:

Assuming a post-tax NPV of 70% of pre-tax NPV of A$335m (as per its PFS), an average valuation for BCI of 9.9% of Mardie’s NPV (excluding its other assets) would be A$23.2m, or 5.84 Australian cents per BCI share. If the DFS on Mardie is completed on approximately the same terms, however, we would expect this valuation to increase more than threefold, to c 30.9% of NPV, or 18.22c per share. Within this context, it is worth noting that our report, Gold stars and Black holes: Analysing the discount: From resource to sanction, found that, within the evolution of a mining project through its various stages of development, the lowest valuation is encountered at PFS stage:

BCI has stated that it will advance development funding options and ownership structures for the project in detail during the preparation of the Mardie DFS. Currently, project development capex of A$335m is ‘likely to be funded from a combination of project debt, equity, product offtake pre-commitments and via build-own-operate (or similar) models where feasible.’ However, it has also said that it ‘will consider all feasible funding structures for the equity component including raising equity in BCI for investment into the project, or raising direct equity into the project.’

Assuming that BCI were to fund Mardie via equity into the company, we estimate that it would have to raise A$91.6m in FY20 in order to maintain a maximum leverage ratio (net debt/[net debt+equity]) of no more than 50% in FY23 when net debt to fund the project would peak at A$191.9m (some of the equity having been provided by retained earnings from income from Iron Valley). Conducted at the current share price, this would involve the issue of an additional c 678.6m shares, in which case Edison’s long-term estimates of BCI’s earnings, (maximum potential) dividends per share and valuation trajectory are as follows (cf Exhibit 13 for Iron Valley base case valuation only):

Discounting at Edison’s customary discount rate of 10% per year, the value of these cash flows to shareholders is 30.66 Australian cents (fully diluted) at 1 July 2018 cf 19.51 Australian cents per share for Iron Valley, cash and corporate costs only (see Exhibits 13 and 14) – implying a Mardie component of the valuation of 11.15 Australian cents:

Note that our valuation, on this basis, peaks at 68.46 Australian cents in FY28 (see Exhibit 21), when EPS would be 5.26 Australian cents – therefore putting it on a contemporary P/E ratio of 13.0x.

The principal sensitivities to which BCI is exposed from an empirical perspective are the price of iron ore received for its output at Iron Valley and the rate of sales at Iron Valley.

Three scenarios were considered in this analysis: 1) a ±20% move in the price of iron ore from those assumed; 2) the permanent high discount of 39.7% for the price of 58% iron ore vs 62% iron ore; and 3) a reversion to the low discounts of 14.1% between the prices of 62% and 58% iron ore prevailing before April 2016.

In the event that the price which BCI receives for its Iron Valley iron ore moves by 20% from that assumed in our base case scenario, the effect on our base case valuation of BCI is as follows:

In the event that the high price discount of 39.7% for the price of 58% iron ore vs 62% iron ore becomes permanent and unchanging, we estimate that the long-term price of 58% iron ore will reduce to US$40.73/t, in which case our valuation of BCI is barely changed at 30.82c/share, an increase of 0.5% relative to our base case scenario.

By contrast, in the event that the iron ore market reverts to the low price discount of 14.1% that prevailed before April 2016 for the price of 58% iron ore vs 62% iron ore, we estimate that the long-term price of 58% iron ore will increase to US$57.97/t, in which case our valuation of BCI increases to 34.77c/share, an increase of 13.4% relative to our base case scenario.

Lastly, our BCI valuation sensitivity to the sales rate achieved at Iron Valley is as follows:

Note the asymmetry of this analysis, as higher throughput rates shorten the life of operations at Iron Valley (all other things being equal), with the result that a greater proportion of output is sold at higher prices (near-term prices being higher than Edison’s long-term price estimate). By contrast, lower throughput rates lengthen the life of operations, meaning that a higher proportion of aggregate sales occur at lower prices and, at the same time, earnings and dividends are deferred to later years, where they have less net present value to shareholders.

In quantitative terms, the principal risks (and valuation sensitivities) to which the Mardie project is subject are to the salt price, opex and foreign exchange rates. BCI’s valuation sensitivity to each of these is provided below (including Iron Valley):

Two other variables are of critical importance to Mardie’s valuation contribution to BCI, namely the amount of equity financing raised to fund the project and the price at which it is raised:

Three improvements of the actual project relative to that envisaged in the PFS have been identified by management:

While the effect of the last of these potential initiatives is difficult to quantify at the current time, we estimate that implementation of the other two, at the parameters indicated, increases the current value of BCI to shareholders by 30.4%, from 30.66c per share to 39.98c per share.

Given that it is already in production, Iron Valley is already substantially de-risked. Those risks that remain may be summarised as sovereign, commercial, commodity price, foreign exchange and global economic risks with limited technical risk (much the same as an agricultural operation). These may be encapsulated in the discount rate applied to future dividends payable be the company to shareholders. Edison customarily uses a 10% discount rate to apply to future dividends. However, variations from this assumption for BCI are as follows:

In qualitative terms, the principal risks to which the Mardie project is immediately exposed include geographical/sovereign risk, engineering risk, financing risk and management risk. Unlike most mining projects however, there is only minimal geological and metallurgical risk (there being a virtual certainty that seawater contains sodium chloride and SOP and that it crystallises out on evaporation). To some extent, these have been partially replaced by climatic risk in the form of high rainfall disrupting the evaporation process. Otherwise, in general terms, these risks may be summarised as execution risk, ie management’s ability to bring the project to account within its geographical jurisdiction and the required technical parameters. In the case of Mardie, however, many of these risks are also substantially mitigated:

Like Iron Valley however, once in production, these risks at Mardie will be perceived to diminish and be superseded by others, such as commercial, commodity price, foreign exchange and global economic risks.

BCI reported net cash on its balance sheet of A$13.1m as at 30 June 2018 (cf A$17.5m as end-March, A$18.9m as at end-December 2017 and A$36.4m as at end-June 2017). Expenditure in Q119 (three months to end-September 2018) was reported to be A$3.8m, as the company continued to invest in value-adding exploration and study activities, partially offset by cash inflows of A$1.8m relating to Iron Valley (including a refund of excess State Government royalties previously paid).

On 22 October, BCI announced that it had sold its Kumina tenements for a total consideration of A$35m, of which A$27m was received in Q219 (ie the three months to end-December), such that its net cash position at end December 2018 was c A$37m, with an additional A$4m in consideration deferred until the first export of iron ore from the tenements (expected FY21) and a further A$4m deferred for another 12 months beyond that, in FY22.

The next 18 months will be characterised by higher c A$25m investment (capex and opex) in Mardie. This will be partly offset by a higher iron ore price (see pages 11–16). Nevertheless, it will be more than sufficient to carry the project to a final investment decision in early CY20. Within this context, we estimate that BCI will finish FY19 with A$27.8m in net cash on its balance sheet.

In addition to those described above, BCI has a number of early-stage exploration projects in the Pilbara and Murchison regions of Western Australia, known as the Buckland, Marble Bar, Black Hills and Peak Hill projects, which are prospective for iron ore, gold (both shear-hosted and conglomerate-hosted paleoplacer), lithium, zinc and copper, but which it is nevertheless seeking to sell to concentrate on its Mardie salt and potash asset.

Buckland is an iron ore development project based in Western Australia’s West Pilbara region. The project consists of Bungaroo South and a proposed road and port logistics solution in the form of the Cape Preston East port. Bungaroo South is located c 45km south-east of Pannawonica and 35km from Robe rail infrastructure.

The project was started in 2012, when IOH initiated the development of a supply chain solution for the Bungaroo South deposit. In June 2014, IOH entered into a port lease agreement with Dampier Port Authority (now the Pilbara Ports Authority) for the development of a port facility at Cape Preston East to support an independent export supply chain solution for Buckland and a feasibility study was completed on an 8Mtpa operation hauling ore via a private road to the new port the same year. The project was considered to be viable at the time of the study, but was subsequently reinterpreted to require a higher quality ore and a higher trucking rate of 15.0Mtpa in order to provide adequate returns to stakeholders. In the wake of its acquisition of IOH in August 2014, BCI evaluated options to determine the optimal development and financing path for Buckland (although this has obviously now been superseded by the company’s decision to divest itself of its iron ore assets to concentrate on Mardie).

Bungaroo South’s mining lease includes the Western Pit, two Eastern pits and the Dragon pit, which are located within a range of c 7km from each other.

According to the conclusions of its feasibility study, Bungaroo South has an estimated life of more than 15 years, a waste to ore stripping ratio of 1:1 and an estimated pre-tax IRR of 24%. As at 30 June 2018, resources and reserves at Bungaroo South were as follows:

Bungaroo South is a channel iron deposit (CID) with a phosphorus grade of 0.14% (cf a maximum desired grade of 0.12%) and, as such, it is an ore that would benefit from blending. In early 2018, BCI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sinosteel Australia Pty, to further support the development of the Buckland project. The MoU sets a framework for potential binding agreements relating to marketing and offtake, engineering services, funding and joint venture structures.

In our report, Gold stars and Black holes: Analysing the discount: From resource to sanction, published in January 2019, we calculated an average value of iron ore resources at the exploration stage of 4.3 US cents per tonne of contained iron, distinguished by category as follows: measured (4.4c), indicated (6.0c) and inferred (2.1c). On this basis, our immediate valuation of Bungaroo South is as follows:

In this case, the valuation of Bungaroo South, at global average in-situ values, lies between US$6.9m, or 2.43 Australian cents per share (with all categories of resources treated equally) and US$9.0m, or 3.15c/share (with differentiated values applied to each category of resources). Factors favouring the higher valuation include the fact that the deposit is in Western Australia, where there is an established iron ore mining industry, the legal basis for mining is well respected and understood and there is good access to infrastructure. Factors militating against this include the slightly higher phosphorus content (Exhibits 35 and 36).

Also of note is Maitland River, which is located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia and plays host to a large (albeit magnetite) iron ore resource, as shown below.