Ann: Rincon 2,000tpa Li2CO3 Operations Update, page-148

This is all fine and well and we've rehashed these points over and over out of frustration over the last few months, but it boils down to the share price languishing because of what we don't know.

Yes, we have the ability to turn the resource into salable product in economically viable fashion. That is a ticked box. But our resource size and ability to exploit u
It means nothing if we don't get the permits to do it.

Look through almost any company discussion on Hot Copper and it will be loaded with biased, primarily bullish content. AGY is no different. We see everyone saying the 10,000TPA permit is a guarantee or close enough to it (someone and I can guess who will likely sook about me saying 'everyone' and point out that it's not actually everyone, and they'll probably pick other nits too, good luck to them, such are the discussions here), but the reality is that expansion permits are not guaranteed. I've been saying for a solid year or more that I expect we'll get the 10,000TPA permit around the time our 2,000TPA plant hits steady state, I still think that is probably the case (I've discussed why previously, and every time it has caused backlash from those saying it would be much sooner) but it's not at all a guarantee, and clearly the market doesn't think so.

The discussions here have put surprisingly little blame in management for implying we would get the permit in Q1. Wording it as the company "targetting" that time frame was an especially poor move. This implies some sort of active effort is being made (when you set a target it generally means you are working towards achieving a goal, not passively waiting and hoping). Obviously if they set a timeframe with any wording, and they fail to deliver or the promise fails to be kept or it doesn't end up happening according to the hopes they raised (again, someone will probably cry about my wording here, that's your choice, I suppose), the price is going to fall. However you word it, you can't talk about the single most important thing we're waiting for happening within a timeframe and not expect a price crash if it doesn't actually happen in that timeframe. If the whole industry is having a slump at that time the price will be punished especially hard.

The resource expansion will be whatever it is. It will be more than enough for us to expand well beyond 12,000TPA ---as long as we get the permits to actually do it---. We won't have any trouble selling our product, we won't have trouble doing whatever we have permits to do, our resource size is big enough to fuel enough production to put our share price well into the dollars, we can have tunnel vision staring at the positives all we like but if we do that we'll get frustrated and confused about the share price as some here clearly are.

The permit is not a guarantee, the market was just let down by management after suggesting a timeframe which was missed (not the first time they've done this). If you repeatedly raise hopes and expectations and repeatedly don't see fulfillment of those hopes, you will produce a perception that the thing is not actually going to happen, and this is the relevant thing for the share price even if the permit actually is in reality a 100% sure thing, which it's not.

The other issue of course is the lithium price. It doesn't help that all eyes are on China, despite those prices being largely irrelevant to us as well as being heavily manipulated and misreported.

While I'm posting, yes, on paper the 2,000TPA plant alone justifies a share price above 40c, but without potentual to exand that would make us a small company with no prospect of going anywhere with the current Rincon tenement, so our price would collapse.

I know everyone wants to just stare at the positives and assume all missing pieces are inevitably going to fall into place, but that's not reality.

If we do get expansion permits, the lithium price recovers (I'm personally confident of that part in the medium to long term) and Tonopah is viable, along with all the positives we already do have ticked off, this is likely to be a 20 bagger from here. But, let's not kid ourselves that some things being derisked means all our risks are gone.