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It’s truthful to say UK traders are instantly fascinated with Helium One (LSE:HE1) and its share worth.
Shares within the Tanzania helium explorer have rocketed greater than 1,000% in a month.
This sort of explosive progress has grow to be the speak of share worth bulletin boards in every single place. So why is that this occurring? And may I pile in now within the hope of getting filthy wealthy?
Initially…
It appears there’s a transparent market alternative to reap the benefits of a latest helium provide scarcity to make critical cash.
It is a non-renewable factor that’s onerous to search out and costly to retailer. MRI machines want hundreds of litres of liquid helium to perform.
Chip producers additionally use helium. NASA is a giant purchaser, alongside China’s area authority, the place helium is used to pump rocket gasoline.
And the world’s largest helium producer is the US. In late January 2024 the nation offered off its big nationwide stockpile together with its Federal Helium Reserve.
In the meantime China solely started producing helium at business scale in the previous few years.
So what’s behind the surging Helium One share worth?
Massive enterprise
CEO Lorna Blaisse has come out with some extraordinarily daring language just lately. That is after Helium One accomplished its newest drill marketing campaign in Tanzania.
The Itumbula West-1 effectively confirmed “vastly vital” outcomes that “clearly affirm” a working helium system, we’re instructed.
The corporate says it has the “potential to grow to be a strategic participant” in helium markets.
This might make the £75m market cap agency dramatically extra beneficial. However discovering a viable system — and extracting what’s there — are two very various things.
Backstory
Helium One began buying and selling on London’s AIM market in December 2020 after merging with Attis Oil & Fuel. Attis shareholders acquired 1 share of Helium One for each 236 Attis shares they owned.
As of 6 February 2024, the share worth was round 2.2p.
And that worth is up 1,000%+ as a result of the shares have been buying and selling at 0.2p as just lately as 23 January.
However anybody shopping for at IPO could be 50% down. Plus there was a large run as much as a peak of 28p in August 2021.
Actually, anybody who purchased earlier than December 2023 remains to be be within the purple.
If, if, if…
I gained’t sneer at Helium One shareholders. I’ve chucked cash at small-cap high-risk/high-reward AIM-listed miners earlier than.
One was drilling for copper in Botswana, the opposite for nickel and lithium in Canada.
As a result of I’m not scripting this from a seashore in Bali, readers can conclude that neither they — nor I — struck it wealthy. On the time I classed my stake as cash I may afford to lose.
However there’s a distinction between me saying I can afford to lose cash, and me feeling sick as I watch it disappear.
What comes subsequent
AIM-listed miners typically have to dilute present shareholders to lift sufficient money to drill and exploit effectively choices.
Mining and exploration is a speculative enterprise. The rewards may be excessive. However they require numerous upfront money for unsure outcomes and irregular payouts.
If anybody investigates Helium One, they need to go into it with their eyes open. This market is suffering from defunct mining operations that promised large and delivered little. So whereas Helium One may ship, I gained’t be investing because the dangers are too nice for me.
