You can put out strategy statements as GL1 did. GL1 closed on the 17th at 61.5c put out the update before open on the 18th and are now 53c. So you recommend GT1 management do the same? (14% down in a couple of days following an update?).
Given there is no spare Hydroxide capacity, a non-integrated strategy is basically mine Spod in Canada (which may not be the cheapest spot in the world to mine). Unless summer Artic shipping lines are viable, eastern Canada is a massive shipping distance from China so ship a long way around to China. Ship to China and ship probably back to the West coast of America/Canada as a finished battery pack or EV. How does that strategy help Ontario? Is that your strategy for GT1?
GT1 quickly realised that although extremely difficult, when establishing basically a new North American lithium industry you need to build the whole supply chain. When that path was primarily set, they hit various problems including needing to buy the remaining 20% of the project. Those issues also explain why the PEA took the time it did. Now they have progressed to having a Mining Lease. When the market turns (and it will) the value in that should be recognised.
Do you realise what a PEA using only measured and indicated in March 2023 would have looked like if someone said you must restrict assumed feed to measured and indicated? At that stage GT1 had 5.2Mt in indicated (at Seymour). Allow for 1.5Mt being used as the mine gets commissioned but before Hydroxide is online 2 years later. On paper at least you have perhaps 3.7Mt of Indicated ore feed for a concentrator and then Hydroxide. A $1b project that runs out of feed in circa 3-4 years is not going to have robust financials. GT1 realised that and pulled the PEA, even although that made it more difficult to tell the story because you couldn't talk costs/EBITDA margins etc. GT1 went gangbusters to define more indicated resource and put out the PEA within 2 months of the Root Bay upgraded inferred resource and within 1 month of a Seymour reclassification. The PEA was promptly delivered after defining just enough resource for it to look sensible. Another 10Mt+ is really desirable by the FID.
Unfortunately for GT1, although the Root Bay JORC's were done quickly, by the time the PEA was ready the market was completely turning off the idea of new and ambitious projects. That's a market issue not a management issue. Because GT1 had already played the defer the PEA card, it wasn't available a second time.
Re Government funding. You can't put out funding news around grants/loans until you get them. I would be absolutely amazed if officials in the Ontario or Canadian governments would provide a grant/loan without at least a PEA issued and probably a mining licence. In fact I suspect they would only start serious deliberations when they know a company has both. This will mean the number of competing projects for any funding rounds that may exist is tiny. Allowing for a short Christmas break, GT1 is currently about one month after the PEA. How quick to you think government works?
There are other companies that have blown heaps of shareholder money although their MC is not quite as low. DLI has blown a bundle on drilling and has a lower MC than when Yinnetharra was bought in Sep 2022. GL1 has blown a bundle on drilling and spending was it $60m buying the remaining 20% of one its two projects. GL1 did this in the month when Carbonate prices were their highest ever so they paid top dollar. The combined EV of both GL1's projects after spending $60m to buy 20% of one of them and all the drilling done is down around $100m. WC8 was a hero stock and reached $1 but is now down at 41c. WR1 has been doing well in defining resources and reached $2.50 but is now at 60c. Many peers to GT1 are being hammered. Where previously it might value 10Mt at $100m, now it can be nearer $20m. That cant last because it will often take more than $20m to find and define 10Mt of resource, particularly to indicated level.
There's massive fear out there and when unfounded comments about crap management are made, those fearful retail holders consider - Sh** I stuffed up buying into this lithium bubble and this company. I should sell out now while I can get at least part of my money back.
IMO we have management making good decisions but fighting an unexpected situation where demand is rising quickly for lithium and prices have at least till very recently been falling like a rock. That combination of rising demand and sharply falling prices is very unusual and has set a cascade series of events into play.
In case you hadn't realised, the news today was that even the Tier1 projects are finding it difficult to get/retain funding. Liontown had its bankers pull the pin on their $780m deal and effectively say, come back for a smaller amount you can actually afford at these lower lithium prices. Getting any project off the ground in that environment is difficult. If you can't progress the project, what is the value?
I think the pricing situation will turn and turn more rapidly than many expect but its going to be a tough slog until that happens.
I think GT1 will be having constructive discussions with Government but those discussions always take time.
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