plant halt, page-2

I'll take a stab at why the market suggests the halt was a bad idea.

Investors love revenue streams. Plain and simple.

Galaxy reported in May, a 'sale, which is valued in excess of A$5.5 million, represents the first significant lithium revenue stream for Mt Cattlin.' -in the article it didn't report how many tonnes of spodumene was sold.

The Cattlin project is producing 137,000 tpa. *That's roughly 11,400 per month of spodumene, if it's consistent.
Correction *(Cattlin achieved record production of 10,784 tonnes of spodumene during May 2012)
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If the sale of 10,784tonnes of spodumene is higher than 4million(operating costs) per month, then the market sees halting the plant, as a bad idea.

I don't have Galaxy's spodumene spot price, otherwise I could give you. However, Glen eagle's spot price is reported as
- (Jan 12) Current market price range (per tonne): spodumene ($450/550)

550(tonnes) x 10,784 = 5,931,200million.
Almost 2 million over operating costs at Cattlin.
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If Galaxy is using the same spot price as Glen eagle, then yes. The halt was a bad F***ing idea...

What the market wanted to hear was, we're selling excess spodumene, until our carbonate plant is completely ramped up.

(Then again, I'm only speculating ;)