General Discussion Banter GLN, page-14827

Wow. A lot in there to think about. Incredibly for me this feels like the first time anyone in industry (outside of Galan) has actually provided a view on the strategy. A few thoughts.

I think there you have your answer for possible persistent ‘undervaluation’ (if you want to call it that) of Galan; like him or hate him as head of ATLM and LTHM before that, he’s the one HF’s and institutions are talking to and getting (what they believe, partly due to his IB background) is *the* reputable view on the chloride strategy on the salar. If they were asking DJ then it seems nobody has been buying his narrative except maybe Joe Lowry (who never bought it enough to actually invest, which says something).

I’ve listened to Paul twice now and he seems to be making two key points:

- LiCl itself can’t be exported to China because the leftover water content needs to be left in country to be reinjected to the salar for environmental reasons.

- in country transfer may work (“Can you move it between salars? Clearly it’s a bit easier to truck brine within a country, process it, and truck the brine back again”) and his comment about Glencore being grateful for someone to actually offer to convert the product for them sounds a bit like a marketing swing, but then immediately after that he questions whether it’s even logical. Earlier on he noted they will be converting LiCl to carbonate at Fenix, Olaroz and Sal de Vida (i.e. are they going to need anyone else’s product to augment their own?).

I think overall the main concern I have out of this segment is that, under JP’s non-export, in-country strategy, Paul Graves and ATLM are supposed to be exactly of the target *customers* for Galan’s product as feedstock. Given he thinks Glencore have signed up to a deal they can’t monetise, does he sound at all interested?