Postmortem on General Moly Speculation

I keep an eye on the molybdenum market. The newsfeed contained both "December" and "General Moly", which got me thinking about an earlier post on GMO futures expiring in December 2013.

Relevant summary:

• General Moly (GMO) is a development stage mining company. They want to dig up molybdenum. They have the land to do so and had the money, until...
• The financing required for mine construction fell through due to an unfortunately timed detaining of a Chinese bank chairman.
• The stock price fell accordingly.

My assumption was that if GMO was able to secure financing elsewhere, the stock price would rebound. Futures for GMO expiring in September and December amounted to a bet on whether GMO would be able to secure financing. To date, GMO has not secured financing, and the futures expired worthless.

Mt. Hope, the focal point of GMO, has proven and probable reserves of ~1.5 billion pounds according to GMO's website (and a health dose of copper). At current prices of $10/lb, GMO is sitting on $15B in molybdenum that isn't going anywhere, for better and for worse.