Ann: Quarterly Activities Report - December 2024, page-34

I've said it before and this webcast underlines it for me again: Sayona has been transformed by Lucas Dow. And it also clear that Sylvain Collard is of similar impressive ilk to LD. A couple of doers, and both as sharp as a whip. The session was for grown-ups - no hyperbole, no blue sky promises - digging into the detail, identifying the issues, flagging the speed bumps and the opportunities. I thought LD (smoothly) walked around a couple of questions but overall he clearly is determined to be transparent and open (notice the resident babble of negative biddies have moved on from obsessing about poor communications by the company).

A couple of things LD said in the webcast that sort of surprised me. First, his answer to the question (from around the 39:30 minute mark) of with all the additional spodumene ore they've found at NAL would it be better to extend the life of the project out to say 30 years or would it be better to expand production capacity. He answered that extending out the life of mine is "obviously not going to realise a great deal of value" so the company is keen to move forward with expanding NAL operations. One of the typically valued attributes of so called tier one mining projects is their long mine life but LD is obviously of the view that if you've got it then use it. I think early on in his stint with Sayona he set the company the target of being cash flow positive from operations by the back end of this financial year. My guess is that as soon as that milestone is hit it will be full bore ahead with the expansion project.

I'm also surprised how they are still so vague about when the merger will go through, with LD repeating that it will be sometime in the first half of calendar 2025. He noted that because of the multiple jurisdictions involved - Sayona being on the ASX, Piedmont listed in the States and Mergeco going to have a secondary listing on the nasdaq, and their main asset being in Quebec - the lawyers are making a killing but also that things are taking some time. That suggests that the twilight period will stretch out towards mid year. LD did say that he, SC and James Brown last week spent some time in the US with the Piedmont team getting familiarised with Piedmont's other projects. Obviously, the sooner LD can start running the whole show the better.

Also, Split, I think LD said the updated MREs are likely to come out around the time of the "annual reporting suite" at this stage (from about the 37:00 minute mark).