It’s very interesting watching what is happening in the Lithium industry, with many contradictions to the rhetoric of the likes of Goldman Sach’s etc, with the actions of SQM, Albemarle etc.
SQM have put an equivalent $1.6b bid on Azure, a company that has a few good drilling results but not even a JORC Resource, let alone PFS, DFS, permits or funding and Creasy owns 40%. In the background Hancock Prospecting have accumulated 15% and look like going to 19.9% like they did with Liontown.
Albemarle bidded $6.6b for Liontown, a company with a smaller resource than Goulamina, more than double the capex & probably opex with little to no Lithium experience.
These big Lithium companies are willing to pay sky high premiums despite Lithium spot prices plummeting and still going down. At the same time sovereign risk in Australia is starting to become a big problem, look at what has happened to Santos & Woodside recently and by the look of the Fin Review article I pasted below it’s only getting worse.
The question is, what do the likes of Albemarle & SQM know that the likes of Goldman sach’s does not?
Yet here is little old Leo Lithium going full steam ahead with it’s project in Mali - on time on budget.
OK we don’t own 100%, even Greenbushes is a JV with 3 companies (50/25/25)
Yes it is difficult dealing with African Governments, but have a read of what
@Pharrell13 posted in this post
70543252 - most major mining companies have moved into Africa, other companies have been doing it very successfully for many years.
At the moment Africa is overlooked partly because of the US Inflation reduction Act. Good chance there’ll be a change of Government come November next year & the Republicans are not fans of this massive spending handout. It’s only a matter of time before Africa becomes the new frontier for Lithium.
At the last traded price we have a Market Cap of $500m, yet we have a Resource that is up there with Greenbushes and Pilgangoora, in fact we slip in at #4 behind Wodgina & ahead of Liontown. We also have a Plant fully funded and under construction. Most importantly, we’ll be low cost - very important with these temporarily low Lithium prices.
The proof is in the pudding - we’ll be producing soon
(20min delay)