Not sure why I'm even giving you the time of day, you obviously regurgitated some crap you heard off someone else, but here we go, I'll go through each of your buzzwords and explain my belief as to why they amount to just that. Then you can use your superior knowledge to debunk what I've said in detail:
JORC down: Yes, a reduction in the overall indicated resource obviously doesn't sound great when presented at a surface level but there is still a hefty ~60m MT resource that is indicated - so the initial 20 years of the mine (This DFS only applies for first 4 years of spod production) are essentially un-affected. As it is mentioned in the DFS, they already launched a 50 000m drilling campaign to rectify this reduction in the resource and for potential extensions, all funded through the Canadian FTS scheme.
Strip ratio up: Interestingly enough as the JORC went down, the strip ratio went up - Then, If you actually read the DFS properly and didn't regurgitate what you were fed by those with a negative/short bias you would have read this:
So once the current drilling program runs its course and all the Mt's that were swapped to inferred are translated back to indicated, that strip ratio will come back down - If you are taking 20mt+ from one side of the strip ratio equation and then applying it to the other it results in a substantial change (but you've read plenty of books so you'd know). My guess is it will come back down to somewhere around 5, anywhere around a strip ratio of 4 is consistent across most peers.
Costs up: This point kind of revolves around the previous one, they are basically the same thing. If the strip ratio went up in the DFS then obviously that increase must be factored into costs and voila you have increased cost/t
The DFS is a wholistic report of the project, you can't talk about increased strip ratio and costs as 2 separate points to make it seem as though there a slew of problems, as much as you would like that, they are one and the same. As I said above though, it is highly likely the strip ratio will come back down as drilling progresses and so will these costs in turn.
PLL offtake: Obviously selling product below market price isn't favourable, however SYA wouldn't be selling ore at all or be in the position to take advantage of heightened prices at the front of the Li market if not for this deal.
I've seen multiple people do the numbers for half the ore to the PLL OT and half the ore to the pending OT and the profits to SYA are looking to be anywhere from AU$220-AU$290 for the first year of production, with very conservative pricing for the lower end. Here's my stab at it using rough pricing numbers implied from Dougal's recent presentation in Singapore and the expenses from the CC report, you can also compare this with the recent Corporate Connect report for a measuring stick if you like:
Expenses = AU$50m
Depreciation = AU$50m
Tax = AU$65m
= AU$165m
- PLL portion 25%
At 163kt p/a
PLL = 81.5kt x US$700/t = US$57m = AU$85m +
OT = 81.5kt x US$3541/t = US$288m = AU$428m = AU$513m rev - AU$165m = AU$348m x 0.75 = AU$261m
At 226kt p/a
PLL OT = 113kt x US$700/t = US$79m = AU$117m +
OT = 113kt x US$3541/t = US$400m = AU$595m = AU$712 rev - AU$165 = AU$547m x 0.75 = AU$410m
By no means is this 100% accurate but it gives you a rough idea. Its almost universally accepted by the market atm that the current prices of Li being reported from China are heavily manipulated to be lower than what a true representation of the supply/demand would yield. Within the next year its highly likely we will be seeing strong prices for Li returning. So US$3541/t in my view is extremely conservative, as well as US$700/t as this is likely to be closer to US$800/t.
MC 'already' at 1.8b: I mean this is an easy one:
Going off of peer comparison's (Not only the ones in the above table), a company earning ~AU$250m annually should be valued higher than $1.8b MC. That is without even accounting for how those profits will subsequently fund a lucrative carbonate plant in 4 years, free of the PLL ceiling prices for product, as well as the development of the Moblan resource base and hydroxide plant.
IMO Moblan could be seen as a slightly lesser version of PMT's resource base as it stands atm (Look at what their MC is based solely off of that resource), if you wanted to take the stance of the Hydroxide plant being a ways down the track, then value it just off of resource.
So I would say the MC is
'only' at 1.8b.
Look forward to your reply once you finish wiping the cheeto dust off your keyboard kiddo
(20min delay)