Banter and General Comments, page-6650

Sorry to take the forum off track from the day to day squabbles but I wanted to present something that I have been thinking about and see what comes back.

I'll discuss Livent, Galaxy (of course) Wesfarmers, Nemaska, Lepidico, Alliance (A40) Pilbara and Albemarle.

Last night I posted about a class action tied to Livent which discussed their potential supply from Nemaska and also needing to buy from other parties.

Joe in a recent podcast mentioned the idea of Wesfarmers taking over Livent to get into brine.

POSCO is another option to take over Livent considering their grand plans to get into Lithium production.

Whether it is either of the two of another party the fact that Livent are needing to utilised other parties to meet its contracts and are being squeezed on their margins which from what I understand and have kinda figured by the fact that Galaxy has continued to achieve excellent pricing.

Should any company choose to take over Livent they would no doubt naturally take a look at Galaxy to be a part of the transaction to be able to meet that supply going forward.

Also, Livent have mentioned in the past to pick up both Argentine assets and also Australian assets.

For it to be an Argentinian asset it would make sense to be something local and perhaps next door, which is Sal De Vida.

Also, that brings them Mt Cattlin along with Galaxy's ownership in Alliance (A40) which has the best grades going.

If it was POSCO no doubt they would have interest in the Lepidico tech, which Galaxy has an ownership of ~12%

POSCO have an arrangement with Pilbara but in my mind Pilbara seem to be too joined at the hip with Ganfeng. I haven't worked this part out perfectly. But it would seem more plausible to own their own supply for ongoing security of it.

It seems to me that POSCO would likely make the best take over party than that of Wesfarmers, though going back Albemarle have mentioned interest in taking over Livent if the IPO didn't work out very good. One of their management was poached from Livent/FMC.

Each of the companies I have mentioned are western companies and consideration being given to the murmers in the rare earths sector I am wondering who else might be out there weighing this all up.

Mention came today of Warren Buffett, and strangely enough there was mention of it in the news yet denied. Yet the article gave some plausible speculation.

Anyone else got something worth thinking about?