ore vs. gxy?, page-7

1) What are your views on ORE vs GXY. I understand that GXY's lithium will have higher costs than ORE, but other than that does any company have an advantage over the other?

That's a big advantage - its the main distinction between commodity producers. Otherwise they are selling more or less the same product and at the same price (with some variation in grade and contract timing as there is no spot price for lithium). If supply begins to exceed demand, high cost companies may go bust (as we've seen recently with some base metals producers and has already happened in the lithium business in the 90s). Even in good times high cost producers will make lower margins.

Other distinctions are:

-Management: very different styles. I rate Richard Seville highly for integrity in his dealings with shareholders, professionalism and exploration skills. Iggy Tan obviously has a flair for marketing the company and cutting deals - also important skills. I'm hoping the new ORE director will fill this kind of role at ORE.

-Byproducts: Tantalum vs Potash. I'd rather be in potash.

-Other projects/exploration upside: advantage ORE. The spin-off of the copper/gold projects might be worth around 10-15 cents per share on its own (just an estimate - depends on the market and how much work they do on them in advance). Considerable upside in the other salars and from a more diverse commodity base. GXY has good potential to expand its resource (as does ORE) but they already both have long mine lives so production costs still the more important factor imo.

2) ORE's main holdings are in Argentina. Are there any sort of political/international risks that would affect its long-term health? Are they reflected in the share price currently?

I don't personally have any problem with the sovereign risk in Argentina. There are plenty of large scale mining operations there (including the majors RIO, Vale etc) that have operated for years without any problem. Its probably a little less politically stable than Australia but nothing like Africa, South East Asia, the Pacific or some other popular mining destinations. As far as local corruption and that sort of thing - I imagine it is probably on a par with China in this regard, and easily manageable with good local connections.

3) I know it must be somewhere here, but around how far are ORE from production? Mid-late 2010?

Unlikely as they haven't even completed a BFS yet. A good question to put to them though they probably won't have the exact answer until some way into the BFS process. Aside from the BFS there is financing, permitting, process design, plant procurement, construction etc to be done before they can commence production (common to any mining operation).

4) I don't know much TA, so what are some short-term resistance/supports that would guide me to a good time to buy-in? Or is it nicely undervalued now?

It depends how many you intend to buy and how long you intend to hold. ORE is quite illiquid so you can't always expect to find there are shares for sale at technical levels or at the time you want to buy -particularly if you want a fairly large position. In that case you are better off taking a long term view and buying when the opportunity arises.

Its a very strong chart - very few companies have been making new highs recently. I would expect a bit more low volume consolidation in the mid to high 40s hopefully followed by another break upwards. If it pulls back further instead, chart support is in the 38-40c zone which is also the price of the raising/rights issue. A very good pick up if you can get them at that price.