General Discussion AGY, page-19908

I’m starting to feel that venting frustrations towards Argosy is incorrect and futile. The Rincon project is controlled by Puna Mining which is a joint venture between AGY and Pablo Alurralde. Even though AGY own 77.5% of the joint venture I’m sure Pablo calls the shots at Rincon. Now, there’s no questioning Pablo’s ability as a chemical engineer, he’s successfully produced lithium carbonate at the pilot plant and the 2,000tpa plant. However, there should be questions about the skill level of others within Puna Mining. We know Pablo’s wife and son work for Puna Mining, in fact 90% of the employees are locals. The question is how deep does nepotism run? Are they hiring the best or extended family and friends?

They built an industrial scale pilot plant capable of producing 500 tonnes of lithium carbonate per annum. It produced 30 tonnes then was moth balled and never mentioned again. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce the plant doesn’t perform as per specification otherwise they’d surely be using it. They’ve encountered issues with the 2,000tpa plant so much so they’ve called in overseas experts to address them. Why didn’t they use experts to design and construct the 2,000tpa plant from the beginning? Especially with the non-performance of the pilot plant. Also, the drilling for the resource upgrade took an unusually long time. I think AGY even recognized issues with the driller's level of experience in one of their updates. The same applies to negotiations with the Mining Secretary about the 10,000tpa expansion approval. That's been going on for nearly 3 years. How experienced are Puna’s negotiators?

AGY’s greatest asset (Pablo) is also it’s greatest risk. They are probably limited in how much they can intervene at Rincon without upsetting the partnership.