In relation to what GXY is claiming - that one I am unsure of what their definition is (using your word "operating cash margin") or is this like a general agreed lithium definition in calculating costs (and is this different to "AISC" for gold companies... so don't know.... ).. so you have find out for yourself on that one ....
but all I did is look at numbers..
So here goes to what I see using 2019 1HFY19 at least ....
If you look at the lithium sold being: 44,630DMT and revenue generated being $27,961,000 USD. This equates to a price of $27961000/44630 = US $626/DMT sold on average for H1FY2019.
Now in this picture below - it says that their average operating cost for that H1FY2019 is $:US387/DMT
So most were going like below..(if using 1HFY2019 results above)
---
WOOOWWWW!!!
$626/DMT - $387/DMT = PROFIT OF US $239 / DMT
$239USD * 44630 DMT sold = $10,666,750 USD PROFIT for that half year
x 2 for Full year = $21 Million USD cash flow positive!! WOOOOOOW.. BUY BUY
---
But of course this is using 2019 numbers where as in the past, the supposed profit was a lot bigger....like $100 Mllion USD from what I can remember.. and lots of hype
But like I said... I just looked at that kind of calculation and that didn't make sense, so gotta look with the cashflow statements..(as Sydneyguy pointed out also).
So if 2019 was to make $10.7M USD profit in ... then why cut production like 40%.. why not full speed ahead and pump up those volumes given the profits per DMT are pretty nice and go make that $20M USD CASH for FY19 and Share price should rocketing to the moon!!!
So yeah... I haven't really calculated the outflow but based on AFR's article:
https://www.copyright link/companie...m-mining-rates-amid-cash-burn-20191024-p533qa
So not sure what's really draining the cash from $285M cash in 6 months to $169M cash and debt of $32M ... or could say $137M cash (if paying out the debt)
I think just need to look at the numbers and see what it says ..