AGM

Apologies for not posting earlier but just got back home today from attending the AGM on Friday.

I was amazed at the apathy shown by almost all of the 5,000 shareholders by not attending. Apart from myself there were 3 or 4 other shareholders in attendance apart from the BDO auditor, our young bearded gentleman who is our CFO, (whose name escapes me), Nich Ong, (our Company Secretary) and Michael van Uffelen, (the Non Executive Director).

Before and after the meeting I was able to chat at length with Michael who I found to be very knowledgeable about ASN in all facets of our company. Some folk on HC had been concerned about the lack of personnel engaged with our Paradox Project and had asked on several occasions what was being done about that. According to Michael that is being remedied right now as they are looking for folk from both USA and Australia to assist in the huge job that lies ahead in getting into productio by 2025. More details regarding this I should imagine will be announced in Q1 2023.

Michael was also quite strong in his belief about the price of lithium. With the NPV in the DFS indicating a number based upon a price of $20,000 per tonne and todays price of around $75,000 per tonne suggested we do our calculations on a number around todays price which would indicate a number more than three times the current NPV in the DFS. We chatted about our respective electric vehicles, GS and Macquarie rather interesting predictions about the supply and demand of lithium and I found him to be a gentleman of integrity and with vast knowledge about ASN, the fickleness of the markets and strategic matters.

I also asked Michael why the other commodities such as iodine, boron, magnesium and bromine which we have in abundance could not be extracted at the same time as the lithium in stage one. He certainly did not deny it was “potentially possible” and the possibilities will be worked through as new chemical engineers and other personnel join our team. He was particularly excited about the boron aspect. He also named a large number of electric automobile manufacturers in the USA with whom he will be touching base with very soon regarding the possibility of offtake agreements which needed to be bedded down by Q1 2023.

When I asked Michael if they would consider floating off WA’s assets into a seperate company so the focus on Paradox would be more singular he advised they were considering that option.

When Bruce came online and questions were requested from the floor, I put to him, that why couldn’t the DFS be upgraded incorporating numbers more closely aligned with the current price of lithium? He explained, (which I was unaware of), that they had to use neutral experts like Benchmark to evaluate what the price might be in 2025 through to 2048 or whatever. So it is crystal ball stuff and depends whether you are in the too much demand or too much supply camp. So it seems the DFS might remain relatively unchanged. He did say that a new upgraded JORC will be coming up in the weeks ahead once further drilling results are analysed.

The second question I asked Bruce was that is ASN keen to bring Paradox into production or was it more likely a JV or TO would be the strategy. He of course avoided the question by saying that ALL options are on the table. A question from the floor from another shareholder who asked me the same thing was why has the SP of our company fallen 50% from its higthe hs while the lithium price over the same period has increased? Bruce had nothing much to say in defence of the SP other than you get ups and downs and sadly we have had a too big a down from what he could see. None of the fundamentals regards the project have changed except for the better over the past few months. The final question regarding the possibility of acquiring a loan from the USA government did not bring much enthusiasm at all from Bruce. He feels the length of time to put together the appropriate documents and hoops we need to jump through it would be easier to arrange finance from more conventional or commercial means. Although he did not dismiss it he just down played the advantage that would be gained against the benefit that could be received.

Most would be happy to learn that Greg Knox had a clean open neck shirt on and a jacket on this video chat. Although as usual he never said a word. They must be feeding in a good paddock in the USA as, like me, they both could do with losing a few kilograms.

After I departed I thought of many more questions I could of, should of, asked but I didn’t. As I intend being a shareholder until at least after the 2024 AGM I trust more of you good folk on HC might be there so we can meet and celebrate the $1.50 party.

Cheers, Stumpy