{"id":353753,"date":"2010-02-23T11:34:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T16:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"e2249889-c78b-43e3-9643-b1d7d4aa587b:399481"},"modified":"2010-02-23T11:34:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T16:34:00","slug":"first-uraniums-problems-own-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/353753","title":{"rendered":"First Uranium’s problems own doing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

First Uranium Corp.<\/a> has had a rough couple of months, as permit problems at its South African mine have ground construction on a new tailings facility to a halt and seriously compromised its financing. <\/p>\n

However, a recent site visit by Bart Jaworski with Raymond James had the analyst wondering if the problems are all First Uranium\u2019s own doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cManagement credibility \u2013 we believe management is still deep in the penalty box,\u201d he wrote in a note to clients Tuesday. \u201cIn our opinion, it appears First Uranium is at least partly to blame for its permitting woes.\u201d<\/p>\n

It appears that the company had started construction on its new Mineral Waste Solutions tailings deposit facility a month before it received authorization in July 2009, without telling the authorities. <\/p>\n

The company defended its actions to Mr. Jaworski, saying the work was \u201cinsignificant\u201d and did not warrant a permit withdrawal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe speculate the transgressions by First Uranium, in combination with the three relatively high-profile appeals, made the project vulnerable to any political machinations ongoing in the region,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Other things going on in the region include tussles between international investors, and an upcoming municipal election in April.<\/p>\n

Mr. Jaworski also expressed concern that capital costs at the site have ballooned to $450-million from initital estimates of $150-million in December 2006.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe received elusive answers,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Explanations included poor initial estimates, longer than expected build times, plant upscaling, and external factors. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not find these explanations satisfactory and we believe investors deserve a more transparent reconciliation,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

However, a visit to the company\u2019s other project at Ezulwini was much more pleasant. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe mine seems to be on a good trajectory with the worst seemingly behind them,\u201d Mr. Jaworski said. <\/p>\n

He maintains a Market Perform rating for First Uranium, but has lowered his price target to $1.50 from $1.80. <\/p>\n

Eric Lam<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Uranium Corp. has had a rough couple of months, as permit problems at its South African mine have ground construction on a new tailings facility to a halt and seriously compromised its financing. However, a recent site visit by Bart Jaworski with Raymond James had the analyst wondering if the problems are all First […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4060,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}