This must go down as one of the biggest trashcans of a thread I’ve ever read in my life.
Firstly, Soundwave, love you my man and Im thankful for many of your insights on Lake, but just stop feeding the trolls here. Bombersmadd, you have my utmost respect, I read your content on a graphite play that we share an interest in religiously. You’re a clever guy. Now thats out of the way:
- Whether Lake qualifies for the inflation act or not, makes no difference. The world needs Lithium, plenty of markets for Lake to sell into as you have rightly pointed out. It wont affect us, might make things a little harder here and there, but ultimately it will be fine.
- Under current terms, it may or may not qualify. Most likely not. Until I see an announcement, what Soundwave thinks or what you think what anybody else thinks, it is an opinion. Its conjecture.
- On point 2, anything could happen. Up until a few months ago baby formula to the USA was under lock and key. Shortage occured and the gates opened for prioritised companies. Who is to say Lake, being an Australian company, working with Lilac, a US company, working with other US companies, would not be prioritised?
- But even if it doesn’t qualify, it doesn’t mean they cant sell to the US and their clients could still qualify so long as the rest of the battery components as a whole meet the preferred inputs threshold (could be wrong here, Im not as well read up on it).
Now the elephant in the room, why did Lake move to the US? Its very simple, yes opening up the US market was one (again, who is to say that is not happening still? Stu was in DC a few weeks ago) but if people pay attention to what Stu says in his interviews the answer is more than just opening up markets and its crystal clear. Let me paraphrase.
- Timezones. Lilac is in the US. Kachi is in Kachi, Argentina. Ford in the US. Export agencies Lake wants to negotiate finance with is in Canada and UK, and I believe the finance coordinators Citi and JP also in the US. From Miami, there are two outliers here, Hanwa and the UK. From Miami to UK the timezone difference isn’t as bad compared to what it is currently.
- Travel. Face to face meetings are back post covid. Miami to Lilac, Kachi, Finance Coordinators and Canada export is a less than a day. Miami to the UK rough, but not so bad. Miami to Hanwa, not great. Again, Miami to where Lake staff need to get to is much better than right now.
- Talent. Miami is one of the best cities in the world to find talent who speak English and Spanish fluently. Secondly as per pt 1 and 2, Lake is trying to level up its board and executive management. High calibre, high experienced people are needed. High experience people tend to be older, tend to have families, tend to have kids and have a lot of options when it comes to picking where and who they want to work for. Now imagine asking a high quality talent that most likely has multiple offers for a job to come work for you and spend three quarters of their time on planes and doing telecons at 3am. No chance.
Yes, the move to the US was to open up the US markets, but it was equally an operational one.
