General Discussion, page-6456

@52570

The discussion btwn Mali and the big goldies on increasing % of gov ownership in gold projects is entirely about NEW projects, ie those who have not had a mining license issued as yet. So I think we can forget about it applying to Goulamina altogether even if it did eventuate.

The current law allows for a 10% free carried, and a 10% slice to be bought by the Government at market rate in any project. Word from LLL over the past six months has been Mali seemed reluctant to buy into the extra 10% for Goulamina, though obviously this can change with new Ministers, and governments.

Personally I doubt Mali are going to stump up the kind of cash they need to buy into Goulamina at market rates after we are in production and Goulamina has a minimum value of say $5 billion. $500 million, even in tax concessions is a lot of dough for the State of Mali to give up on over a few years. But if Mali do, and the JV company find themselves with an extra $500 million in cash over the first few years, it will likely be quickly redeployed by Simon buying into lithium deposits either in Canada or Australia that require capex funding.