Coming back to this @Yk84, approaching the diversification point I made was from a "back up plan" point of view not from necessarily a growth point of view..
Because like it or not, and this is going to be a hard truth for a lot to hear and if you're completely honest and pragmatic about it... there's a really high chance that NAL and the JV is going to fail again.. this next quarter we aren't going to see a profit from NAL.. plain and simple.. so how many quarters does the JV plan to continually throw money at it.. James has already said they've spent far more than they initially thought.. fine that happens with most projects, but he also made a point of saying how risky it was "really putting out necks on the chopping block here" and that they review the progress weekly and it needs to be cash neutral "at best" (I think he meant at worst) so while we may not see a profit this quarter if the JV is cash neutral we'll live to fight another day.. the plant could have a major hiccup at any point and when you have a pricing environment that doesn't support slim margins, then the reality is of care and maintenance or sell off the asset. (who do you think would want to pay for a thrice failed lithium operation) So this HAS to work and if push comes to shove I think the government would step in because again, as James said, NAL is a bit of a "tester" and everyone is looking at them as the only new source of NA spodumene and he feels a great deal of responsibility in making the project successful..
Anyway, alllll the way back to the point of developing Tabba Tabba.. you need these projects so they company can continue to operate into the future when James and the rest of the board become a distant memory (not from an over throw mind you) but once everyone's retired 20 years from now there has to be other projects in the pipeline.
(20min delay)