Ann: Ord Minnett Mining Conference 2025 - Investor Presentation, page-5

An interesting presentation, most of which we've seen many times before.

The most interesting aspect is the percentage of completed engineering design.
Why?
Because a deposit/plant of this type has never been mined/built before, so there is no proof of concept.
Also, they are not planning to build a demonstration facility to test the engineering design, so no-one will know if it works optimally until they turn the damn thing on, probably sometime in 2032.

This places the plant engineering and it's related chemistry into a higher risk category.
We simply don't know if it will work, because it's never been done before with this type of deposit.

And we won't know if it will work until at least 3 years after FID, but probably more like 5.

There have been mines in China with related chemistry, but not identical or completely similar.

There are a lot of test scenarios here, more than most people think.

Let's be conservative, and say that a JV partner is found by the end of the year, and then a FID is announced early in 2026, and then with testing and procurement and building it takes 4 years to build, which takes us to 2030, and then further testing and ramp up takes at least a year - we will be most likely seeing full production sometime in mid 2032 if everything goes well. Not bad for a project that was initially targeted to commence mine and plant building in 2020 before all the legal cases hit. That is effectively a 10 to 12 year delay, if it gets built at all. And mid 2032 is still 7 years away.

Are the directors presenting the full and complete picture here, or looking at this through rose coloured glasses?

Gw