North American Lithium - Revisit, page-160

Part 10

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Back in the Lightning, and cruise down toward the viewing platform at the pit.

This is a sample photo, but when one of these dump trucks cruise past you, the reality of what this place is achieving slaps you in the face....hard.


Seeing one of these beasts' cruise past you full of ore, is when it all became well and truly real for me.
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Sorry, before I move onto the pit, I missed a bit, so if I can backtrack a little back into the boardroom with Sylvain.

I was still angry.

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In our robust discussions, James and his visit of course came up.

It had been mentioned in the office in Montreal and at NAL, that he was visiting to get up to speed, numerous times...

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me: Sylvain, so this director does not know what is going on?

s: Well......he is getting up to speed...

me: He is a director of this company, collects his paycheque, sits in the shadows and now that he is forced into action, has taken an interest in what is happening?

We know what is happening... Like many of the retail investors, You want to talk strategy, pit optimisation, production, flowsheets, chemicals, JV, macro, micro, PFS, PTS, DFS, battery tech, chemistries, Chinese manipulation, ASX manipulation, shorting, PLL...we can discuss this...all of it....

s: Well, he needs to have as much information as possible. This was his third visit...

me: So where has he been? He has left Brett to carry the load and he and Buckler, from what I can see essentially do, well we don’t really know, and we pay them? What for???
Another little frustrated outburst...Sylvain did come to James's vigorous defence and stated our thinking may be more aligned than we could comprehend.
.James, as a good operational guy, did have some oversight of the mine and plant and was taking in as much as he could with Sylvain.
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In reality, it is difficult to gauge, because even after all my pleading, James has still not put out a comm, and the interactions I have had with him are just small talk.
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This still staggers me.

I know these guys are non-executive directors, not involved with the day to day, but I would like to think they have a better understanding of the operation and the sector than me. In my ideal world, It is their job.....

But I do not think they do.

Brett certainly did, as well as the strategy for future direction.

James put out a Morella comm stating-
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.“I am very pleased with the level of support I have received from our Board and team in regard to some increased pressure on my services. I want to assure our stakeholders my responsibilities to Morella will not be affected."
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But nothing for Sayona!

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Our alignment in thinking???

Was it with our JV partner and strategy going forward???

Sylvain obviously knew more than he was letting on, but that is cool he can only say so much.

So, I am not sure, but Sylvain's reasoning was to have James reach out to us.
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Back in the Lightning and off to the viewing platform at the pit.
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There was a little conversation in the truck, but I think we were just taking it all in, and when those dump trucks cruise by you full of ore, it really hits home.
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Sylvain's explaining this pit is not that big, he has been involved with much bigger projects with much bigger daily tonnages.

But I think for us layman, it was big enough!!! It is bloody huge....

When F150's look like matchbox cars and those dump trucks look like Tonka trucks, you understand.
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At the viewing platform we had a photo op, so took some photos.

We talked about ramp and production, and as per Split's recollection, they were of course aiming for nameplate, which was on track, but looking to be within reach sometime in the 4th quarter this year.

They were processing an average of about 500-550/day and need to get to around 620...so they are getting there...

As Split said it was roughly 20 trucks by 30t every 5 days or per week...they did not run on weekends.

The operators in the pit have been trained to bring up the pegmatite ore only.... the white ore.

It has been a training ordeal, but the guys are able to scoop up the white pegmatite and discard a lot of the waste rock.

When they started, they were picking up 7-10% of waste ore, the waste either side of the veins.

They have that down to below 1% now, I think 0.7% from memory.

It is a tough body to mine, but the guys are working out ways to get it done as efficiently as possible.

Sylvain is a BIG part of this.

I was later to find out he is probably the most sought-after operator in Quebec.
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They grade/groom the area to a nice flat base, then they drill blast holes into this base, add the explosive, blast a face off which turns into rubble, then the trained operator pushes the waste ore to the sides and only collects the white pegmatite ore in the middle.
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As I said, it was a process to train the operators, but the Fournier boys have it down pat now.

These are the challenges of a mid-tier resource, the challenges that under Sylvain's leadership, are being overcome.

It then gets loaded on the dump trucks and taken to the rom pad where they now have 5 graded stockpiles, totalling around 130kt.

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These efficiencies that they are picking up, rom pad grading, and the Vallee resource to the east has nullified the requirement for Authier ore.

So, it now makes sense why there is no urgency for Authier, and it is on the proverbial back burner...

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It then gets crushed in the primary, secondary and tertiary rock crushers, and heads off to the optical ore sorter.

These are all outside, dust creators....and they are building additional storage and coverage for the crushed, sorted rock. So if there is a problem upstream, there is material to continue to be fed to the concentration plant.

They are in the middle of building this massive enclosure for it and photos have been posted on Sayona announcements. I originally thought it was the megadome for the dry tailings, but it's for the crushed, sorted ore.

EG. The bottlenecks are the mills.

That is where the process slows down. (they are even thinking of duplicating the ball and rod mills in the plant)

They can produce way more crushed and sorted ore to feed them.
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From announcement 6th September-

While we were there, there was a problem with the optical ore sorters. If they have crushed sorted ore in the future, they can take it from the stockpile and keep the mills and the process going, ensuring recoveries remain 70%+.

They can then repair the problem, while downstream ops continue on their merry way.

These are the ideas that Sylvain and his team are putting in place to keep the process humming along...

Does anyone else have a Sylvain??...