It's endearing to know a company with CEO who listens directly from shareholders. Paul listens to shareholders.
I know Paul reads these threads. But it is challenging to filter the BS from legitimate contributors who are either looking for information or airing concerns. A friendly reminder that AGM is the best forum for both information and raising concerns.
How do I know Paul reads these threads? My team tells me, many things I post here comes up at his interviews, whether about modular approach or transporting heavy equipment up mountains. Besides, I'm on here too and I don't know everything eg. Big Sandy project. I imagine Paul and others would have similar sentiments.
This post is to assure shareholders that the Board is 100% listening. Share price appreciation is top of mind. Their focus is to unlock value and quickly, so in return, investors continue as well as more financially support the company target of Q1 2025 production/commercialisation.
Please attend AGM.. I can't.. and get as much financial information as possible.
In preparation, I'd like to give some information already known as Paul is not quite as articulate and don't have time to post here (while I have nothing better to do sitting on planes). Sidenote, I didn't realise he was at the LA event as well but I did meet with Joe Lowry too. Now I'm off to east coast, currently in Texas. It's a busy time for the US battery industry.
Some facts about the modular approach so this doesn't waste time at AGM:
- Each "module" has 1x DLE facility/equipments setup
- The module has 3x pads
- Each pad has 2x wells (totalling 6 wells per module)
Q1 2025 construction completion of 1x module estimates 6,000tonnes LCE (1k per well) production per year. At an estimated price of $20k per tonne, that's $120M approx revenue per module.
It cost a million or so for each well. What I love about about Saskatchewan project is, you can literally place to market your drilling scope of works and companies would bid for best price to drill those wells for you. You can't do that in Argentina or Chile... or Europe for that matter part of the reason why it costs a lot there (capex). There are lots of these small-medium companies where Prairie project is, as they have been doing this for oil&gas explorers and developers for many years now in this region of North America. Transport of heavy equipment, planning and administration aside, it takes only 2-3days to drill a hole 2.5km deep. This access to equipment and services is hard to beat. Q1 2025 is very realistic, provided funding, as this is what they do there, SSDD.
I imagine post the first module, or around same time, would also be target completion of Bankable Feasibility Study for Prairie project. BFS (aka DFS) is needed if to scale, ie. to convince investors to fund capex to construct more modules across AZL's vast claims in Saskatchewan and unlock economies of scale. Assume 20x modules, which conservative forward estimates would be roughly 2.5B revenue per year.
Each module can have different DLE method/technology. I think AZL sits atop of all DLE lithium brine projects and better placed compared to others because of this modular approach(although there really isn't much competition as all projects needs to get to production if to reach 2030 targets and so all DLE companies are sharing information and helping each other out but I digress). One module can have PLIX, another with 3rd party etc - this flexibility is important as each type of brine require different DLE method if to more effectively and efficiently extract lithium from the brine.
This is why the PFS is so very important right now, and my risk/reward analysis was to acquire shares prior to PFS (not after). It helped that my team saw at 1.4-1.5c shares were oversold by the market.
We need to see the economics via PFS but most importantly, CAPEX and OPEX. We can forward estimate revenue ourselves but unclear as to the cost of the project... and therefore profit margin.
I can't say for certain and this last paragraph is speculating.. I think the share price would climb to about 7.5-8c prior to PFS (AUD400M market cap) , as did VUL prior to PFS, and if the market likes what they see post PFS, who knows where it will end up. We acquired VUL shares in 2020 for 20c and sold for $14... and now waiting for financing details before getting back again... AZL is the priority though as Prairie project is faster, cheaper and more profitable (at least so far from our estimates that now needs confirmation).
Hope everyone's having a nice weekend. Sorry about weekend post. I'm too busy this coming week and thought I'd share this now for AGM week. Cheers
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