Surveying the posts since Dow took over there is certainly a wide spectrum of opinions.
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.Some new debates have begun, although many of them are the old perpetual ones, stuck in a constant loop, and dredged up from time to time.
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In terms of Dow himself, he certainly does come with comprehensive resume.
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Starting at BHP, then to New Hope, back to BHP and up through the ranks, and finally culminating in the head job at Adani/Bravus in Australia.
Many of us would probably remember the controversy around the Indian led conglomerate Adani group and the Carmichael mine in QLD, which was
as much a political challenge as it was a technical challenge, as the lobby groups drew it into the media.
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So he certainly has had some challenges in the past and does come with a tough and abrasive reputation to get get things done.
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In terms of impartiality, there certainly is a smoking gun here, as he worked for New Hope on their Indonesian coal mine and Buckler was the COO at the time
as well as a top 10 shareholder. This is reportedly where Buckler made his millions, after they spun out the project to llocal investors and he cashed in.
So, there probably was an association, but to what extent only those 2 could tell you. Whether its just a hi and bye boss kind of relationship here remains to be seen,
But what we do know, is that is no longer the case.
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Lets not forget that Sayona commissioned recruiters Korn Ferry under Lynch and Brunswick under Brown, to find a chairman, who in turn was to assist and hire a new CEO/MD.
But to no avail....
It's tough to surmise the exact reason why, and the theories range from no self-respecting CEO would join us in this climate, to theycouldnt find anyone of calibre to mould and fit with the current board and its direction.
I do know, we spent a lot of money, wasted a lot of time, and then just shuffled the deck chairs on the Titanic, with the same orchestra, playing the same tune.
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Whether Sayona as a pure rock play will be the proverbial Titanic, with this board playing the same tune as she slips below the waves, remains to be seen.
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Capex, Opex, recoveries, efficiency, shipping costs...all need to improve...and so does the lithium price.
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Sylvain, is an impressive COO and operational man, troubleshooter and strategist, driven to succeed and determined to get the best out of NAL...including downstream carbonate.
Hard worker, intelligent thinker...no bs,I tell you the man is more impressive in the flesh than off a page.
He is executing the strategies put in place by him and Lynch, way before JB become an active director in Sayona.
JB's primary focus at the time was 1MC, who he is trying to progress both in WA and the US, but with limited success so far.
Their SP is shot, so they recently consolidated, to gve them further runway to again tap the market for money via a CR.
This is a 25:1 and is happening now, with the aftermath to be witnessed next week.
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Make no mistake, the same strategy is on the cards for Sayona, with Brown publicly stating as much to the RK equity boys.
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But back to NAL, whose survival and success is paramount, if Sayona is to succeed and prosper.
The issue at the moment is we are still not making money per tonne sold.
Of course, this is not sustainable long term and we need to see massive improvement, if not a complete positive turn around in revenues.
This next quarterly then, will make a big statement to the market, one way or another.
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Ramp is a difficult process for any operation, and not expected to yield positive revenues.
But once at nameplate, with the improvements learned and implemented during ramp, for us over the last 18 months, should put us in a place where we are close to breaking even.
We have done some analysis here, and we should be getting close to stemming the bleed, and getting to a point where the market begins to take us seriously as a producer.
Nameplate has been reached over days, and hopefully in the quarterly it will be revealed that we are at a sustained 4200tpd, with a view to pushing to 4500tpd.
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The lessons learned have been incorporated, with the storage dome, refeeder chute and additional jaw crusher now all in operation.
As well as improvements to the mined ore selection from the pit, tuning the ore sorter, improved ROM pad sorting and an increased amount of ore rejection getting to the crusher circuit.
All bode well to improvements in efficiency, recovery rates and a decreased cost per tonne.
The additional tonnage, also assists in driving opex down further, as the fixed costs are spread over a greater tonnage.
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But it is it enough?
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Many of us had hoped the lithium price would have recovered further by now.
This includes many experts, analysts and CEO’s.
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The Chinese are certainly playing the long game with lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earths and the downward pressure they exert on these commodities.
This sustained pressure on prices to stay flat or decline will continue into the foreseeable future.
Most analysts and so-called experts have, for the most part, underestimated the East's ability to keep commodities depressed for the long term.
And with that, comes the stifling of investment dollars and the destruction of the markets appetite to support new and incumbent projects in the critical minerals space.
Both lithium and rare earth's still heavily depend on China's ability to refine, and unless we decouple from that stage of the supply chain, the west will get no-where.
It's coming, but no where near quick enough, if the west truly wants to decouple and build its own ex China supply chains, it must assist the incumbents to survive and reach commercialization.
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The latest EU report into the Chinese supply chain estimated a 231B of subsidies and support, to get them to the ultimate goal of global auto domination....the writing is on the wall here.
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Personally, this pushes me to think about the next steps, even though we are losing money and the reality is that the current markets are very unsupportive of releasing capital without a deep discount for early producers or incumbents. It’s tough to spend money when you don’t have it, or your priority is to keep the lights on.
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So, here in lies the problem.
Without a substantial rise in lithium price both SYA and PLL are possibly dead.
With PLL, it could be within the next 12 months, for SYA, it would be a slower death.
25million, of our finances in the last quarterly were FTS funds for exploration, hence the continued exploration campaigns that the company has announced.
That left us 74M.....with last quarterliescashburn from memory around 60M.
The ATM facility is slow, and at the current SP extremely dilutive.
To gain another 60m, we would need to issue another 2 billion shares....no wonder JB is seriously looking at a share consolidation.
Other factors also come into play...issuing shares at a discount for institutional support, the sweetener of options, as well as the risk of the placement not being underwritten.
As I said, these are tough markets to raise capital.
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The alternative is to bring a financier /partner onboard, who could allocate 500M to restore the carbonate plant. They would of course take equity in SYAQ and/or the carbonate plant.
They could pick up refined IRA, ESG compliant carbonate from NAL.
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It’s costing Elon over 1B for Corpus Christi, so 500M for a 50% stake in the carbonate plant sounds fair, and to be honest, they couldprobably do it for less.
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Security of refined, North American supply...what is that really worth? Particularly if the US wants to shake up China’s re-unification with Taiwan.
Our product currently, is of course riddled with parasitic transport costs to China, of 100-150/tonne, which will never see us as a low-cost producer and able to compete pound for pound with the Chinese, some hardrock and most brine/DLE plays.
That is part of the reason the market does not favour us and does not respect us.
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The shorting at high levels continues, symptomatic of weak lithium prices, opex, capex, negative profit margins, a diminishing cash reserve, and the lack of any real positive shifts ar board level.
However, on the ASX any high retail critical mineral stock has been targeted at high levels.
They are prevalent in the sector and will not leave unless sentiment shifts and we again start to see a structural deficit in the supply side.
Additionally, the liquidity has been sucked out of small caps, in part due to high interest rates and unless this narrative changes, we will not see a pivot by the instos, back into smaller risk on assets.
They have a different view to us...play a much longer game, and preservation of capital is paramount. So, theyallocate to high yield cash accounts, safely earning 5-6% and do not risk their clients' funds with companies such as ours. I have been told that when these yields drop to 4% and below, they begin to re-allocate back into the riskier assets.
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I haven’t posted for a long while, but still do care and have millions of shares. Full disclosure I did sell a million or so at a loss, to balance some other gains I had made.
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Some like to refer to me as part of the sack the BOD crew, but I prefer to think of myself as someone who cares about this company, and cared enough about my investment to take actions I thought necessary to try and improve the chances of this companies' survival.
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It’s not the sack the BOD crew, it is the make Sayona better crew,
At least we got our compliance issues through loud enough for the ASX to act.
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In that vein, I continue to follow the company and the endeavours of JB, Buckler, Dougal and Crawf. The Lucas’ have not made an impact yet, but now LD as CEO/MD, will come into the spotlight and attempt to take this company forward.
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Some say his appointment, was the swan song for Buckler, the succession plan. These last few months being Dow’s apprenticeship under Buckler before he takes the reins, ensuring his approval and obedience.
Buckler is well and truely passed it, and so isCrawf.
Buckler is up for re-election, and I suspect without the PLL vote, and being barred from voting himself, will have a tough battle ahead of him, of staying in power. There are a few heavy hitters in the top 10 who want to see him gone.
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For a man who existed in the shadows for so long , he did an amazing job of controlling the narrative at SYA and 1MC....Corey Nolan, Brett Lynch and Alex Cheeseman, all falling victim, when opposing Buckler.
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Do not take him out of his comfort zone, and do not stand up to him.
The fact is, all BOD members may be up for re-election and are facing the prospect of a second strike for the remuneration report.
A special resolution which only requires 25% of investors to vote no, for it to carry.
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I suspect there is still enough underwater pissed off retail holders out there, to comfortably hit this target, remembering last AGM, was a resounding 48% against.
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As for Buckler, if you ask most investors about him, they don’t know what he does and some do not know he exists. What value does he bring to our board, what wise words does he have to offer?
At 77 years old, I wish he was some sort of oracle, a soothsayer who sees the future and a path that could take Sayona and its shareholders into a prosperous future.
Sadly, he is not, and does not represent the future of this company.
You have to respect Sylvain and Lynch and even JB, for the way they have fought and battled to take Sayona from Authier only, to what it is today.
And whether you love or hate him, that was primarily on the back of Lynch, that Sayona is where it is today.
You may argue the point, but under his watch, he brought us NAL and Moblan, and without those, we are nothing....another 1MC...and no offence to the 1 MC holders, it was an illustrative example only , and i too once, was a shareholder.
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So where to from here?
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Well as I said, by the end of the month, the next quarterly will be telling.
Almost amake or break, becuase if we do not see substanstial improvement, without a significant uptick in lithium prices, the writing is on the wall.
We still have not seen an offtake...
We still have no definitive downstream plans.
We are running out of money.
And judging by the SP and MC we are still uninvestable, with even retail now leaving the building and with a board who is in investment circles, are still viewed the same.
I am still invested and I still believe that with prudent management we can survive.
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So,let’s see what the next quarterly brings.
Nameplate is not enough...we need the opex to drop dramatically and we need to stem the cashburn, the bleed...If we have another 60M cashburn quarter, we are finished.
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The marlin, who was very real, hasspat the dummy and disengaged in disgust.
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The Quebec provincial powers will not support us in our current state...funding is gone
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If you don’t believe me, then where are they??? When others are sold out years in advance, Where’s the offtake...where’s the funding?
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It’s up to our BOD to get us through.
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And in its current form and with its current skillset, our future still precariously remains in balance.
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Good luck everyone.
(20min delay)