"I was expecting positive cashflow of A$40m to A$50m. Instead it was A$26.8m"
My mistake was of course, that I expected the average Sales price to be US$700pt. Instead it was A$700pt, or about US$535pt.
Yet we all saw during the Jun21 quarter, advice of Spod sales spot pricing to be between US$650pt and US$850pt. They even stated in the Mar21 Quarterly that an April spot sale indicated US$655pt. I just assumed they were talking about their own sales. I'm not impressed by the ambiguity.
Ken mentioned at the Conference Call he was negotiating a reappraisal of the sales price mechanism, given the stark difference between contract pricing and spot pricing.
Ken stated the last time Spod prices exceeded US$1,000pt the price of Carbonate and LiOH were both over US$25,000pt. Now they're around half of that.
The GLX Digital Sales platform sale at US$1,250pt was great. However during Q&A at the Conference Call, a sombre mooded Analyst posed the question how much Spod PLS would be selling on the auction process during CY2021. Ken said about 10kts to 20kts from Pilgan and another 15kts from Ngungaju in Q4CY21. In the same breath the Analyst then asked when PLS would be trading again.
Its great Spod prices have risen but PLS does not appear to have capitalised on it ... yet.
The mitigating factor for the PLS share price, is that the Chinese (Stage1 and 2) EV stocks have been extremely strong. Even in the Chinese sharemarket selloff last week, they showed great resilience.
Both GXY and ORE have been up about 5% since the PLS trading halt began.
I was disappointed with the Quarterly Report but Sector strength should see the PLS share price perform very strongly on monday.
Ganfeng are expecting upwards of an 800% lift in H1CY21 profits. However a lot of that is marking up their Stage1 investments, of which PLS will provide some $60m in capital gains.
PLS is still just a miner with no high margin, downstream participation ... yet. Still, Lithium Boom Phase 3 is running hot.
I was surprised at the Conference Call when Ken said a decision on Pilgan Stage 2a expansion, wouldn't be decided upon until the end of CY21. I would've thought this would've been automatic on the POSCO JV decision.
PLS Price at posting:
$1.77 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
(20min delay)