Banter and general comments, page-15628

Jumping joey,

I think you need to revisit some of the basic project facts here.

For starters, we will average 170 000 tons of Spodumene per year once the plant is fully calibrated. When that will be is up for debate but I'd feel fairly confident saying Q1 of next year is likely given the night shift is now on it.

That means between now and then we're producing DSO. It's not as valuable but considering the price, I'd say it's not a problem it it means that the cashflow taps are turned on and our first pay day happens before years end with more to come.

Going back to the figures though, the current spot price (depending on who your talking to and if it's CIF/FOB and auction or contract) ranges from 5500 to 7500 USD a ton.

Our All-in Sustaining Cost (which is everything except tax and the cut to the Canadians) is 541 USD a ton from memory (or thereabouts).

If we only get 90% on spot and we use the lowest of the two figures, that's 4409 USD per ton. If we deduct the Canadians royalty cut and the corporate tax at full rate (no mine in existence pays all of this but let's just be conservative) then your left with about 3009 USD per ton pure profit.

That times the minimum contractual amount of 170 000 tons to satisfy out partners to date gives us 511.5 million USD or about 818 million AUD in pure profit a year once the spodumene operation is running in Q1 of next year.

It does not include the lithium fines, it does not include the potential doubling of production as previously proposed by management and it does not include anything else of value pulled out of the ground also in the process of mining and selling elsewhere.

If you use the upper spot price the final profit figure is about 741.3 million USD or 1.186 Billion AUD.

Yet again, not including the lithium fines, other by-products or the doubling of production.

So Stu knows what he's talking about. Does risk still exist? Yes. But overwhelmingly, the risk which can be mitigated or eliminated to date has been done. The crusher is on, the circuits are working, the stuff is out of the ground in stockpiles already and shortly our first boat load will be on route to China.

She's a done deal. Just sit tight and watch the market cotton on 6 months too late some time next year that this company is a cash spewing machine.