Blackstone Mineral garners interest from Vietnam’s biggest conglomerate

Blackstone Minerals Limited’s Ta Khoa project is drumming up a lot of interest among banks and analysts who have recently taken a tour of the site. Among the tour group lies Vietnamese’s largest conglomerate, Vingroup.

Vingroup has interests in real estate, automotive industry, healthcare and other sectors with a combined market capitalization of $32 billion USD.

Experts believe that Vingroup’s goal is to obtain any and all of Blackstone’s nickel processed from Ta Khoa. Ta Khoa is a large-scale underground nickel mine located in the Son La Province in northern Vietnam. It was put under ‘care and maintenance’ (a term for a mine site that is closed and is scheduled to be reopened at a later date) in 2016 as there were challenges from depleting resources and low nickel prices.

Blackstone would welcome discussions with Vingroup about an agreement and potential associated funding deals. This is because Blackstone and Vingroup would have the common interest of launching a big project off the ground. Both companies would have the same capital requirements and need for funding.

Blackstone is currently listed on the ASX with a $125 million market cap, their share price opened at 29.5 cents this morning, this was an increase of 13% compared to Friday’s closing price of 26 cents.

Blackstone is looking to develop a Vietnamese integrated mining and refining battery metals processing business, this is why they own 90% of Ta Kong.

Vingroup would be a suitable partner for the Ta Khoa project as they are Vietnam’s biggest employer. According to Mvis-Indices, Vingroup makes up about 10% of the VN-Index. They also have a considerable interest in vehicles, with their subsidiaries Vinfast and Vinbus.

Vinfast produces cars and motorbikes and they have planned on ceasing the production of internal combustion engines cars by the end of 2022. They would put more focus on electric vehicles as they’ve sold their first batch in 2021. Nickel is a crucial component of electric vehicles.

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Source: ASX, Blackstoneminerals, Vingroup, Nsenergybusiness, Wikipedia, Mvis, Tradingview, AFR.