Pirata, that is an extremely important instagram picture there. It legitimizes the deal LEL did last week by a lot.
Why?
For the past week ive been trying to find more info on "Xi’an Lanshen New Material Technology Co. Ltd" and their supposed "3kt plant...to be built for an Argentinian company in the Salta Province in Argentina". I got led down a few rabbit holes (forgive my ramblings, as these are random notes i've had for the past week)
Ramble path 1:
This company that LEL has done a deal with is called "西安蓝深新材料科技有限公司" in Chinese. The easy google searches lead you to a DLE deal with minmetals in 2021 at Yipiling lake (
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/06/20210605-minmetals.html ) and also pre-ipo funding from this year (
https://www.itdcw.com/news/focus/02011335512023.html ) but i was still not convinced they were legit.
the confusing thing is that the Chinese name for the more known "Sunresin" is surprisingly similar "西安蓝晓科技新材料股份有限公司" (3 characters different) and Sunresin also announced a deal to build a DLE system in Salta Argentina 2 weeks ago (
https://www.seplite.com/Sunresin-Signed-a-25-Million-US-Dollars-DLE-Contract-on-Lithium-Carbonate-Extraction-System-id41019527.html ). Interesting notes -- the deal was with "Hanacolla" for a 3kt/yr system to cost US$25m!!! Of course im not satisfied by this sanitized English translation, so off i go and try to find the original Chinese doc and up comes
https://www.aijingu.com/notices/300487/AN202306151590979445.html Copy and paste a few lines at a time into google translate, but then turn over to page 2... "HANACOLLA's main business is to explore, develop and extract lithium resources from salt lake brine . It is a joint venture between Hananta SA and
Strike Resources Ltd . The company owns the Arizaro project in Salta Province, Argentina ."
Fantastic, Hanacolla = Hanaq!!! (further investigation: not quite, it looks like Hanaq owns 95% of Hanacolla as per
https://boletinoficialsalta.gob.ar/instrumento.php?cXdlcnR5dGFibGE9QXwxMDAwNjQ5NTUmZGF0YT0yMDIyNnwyMDE4cXdlcnR5 )
So this meant that LEL should have not have been duped into thinking they were dealing with a fake Sunresin, because LEL is already partners with Hanaq (who 10% of the olaroz tenements).
The instagram picture helps me confirm this as well and puts to bed any lingering doubts about the legitimacy of the company they are dealing with.
Ramble path 2:
So who is this company that "Xi’an Lanshen New Material Technology Co" is building a plant for? I too was led down to reading up on Lithium Chile and their Arizaro project. I noted that they have drilled about 5 holes and have already come up with 1.53Mt LCE indicated and 1.79Mt inferred (side note: 3.5km and 5km radius used not 2.5/3.5km as you mentioned), total 3.3Mt LCE. Argento Hole 2 was drilled to 649m, and encountered 255m of brine up to 350mg (much smaller than what LEL has drilled at holes 4 and 5)
There's a decent interview of this company here from the past week -- guy sounds rather knowledgeable and presents well. It would have been great if LEL explained their drilling stuff ups on holes 2 and 3 like this guy did?
VIDEO So Lithium Chile == 3.3Mt LCE. I forgot to mention, just 62% ownership of the tenements. Also own a few things in Chile that might be worth a nominal amount. What is their market cap? 206M shares @ CAD 77c = CAD160M, less CAD40m Cash/Bills = 120M CAD EV = 135M AUD EV for 62% of a 3.3Mt LCE project.
This makes LEL's AUD 80M EV look extremely compelling given that i think they have 90% of a >4Mt resource (using only 4km radius as well as opposed to 5km). The question i still have is: will shareholders make money or will it all accrue to management and their friends?
End of ramblings for another week. time to enjoy the sun
(20min delay)