ASN is on our watchlist and yes I've visited the projects. I think it's a compelling business case but it's not one I would invest in, at least not yet, as I'm not sold on the hype. You can have all the lithium in the world but if you're unable to dig it up and sell them, then you're nothing more than an Africa comparing yourself to Australia. That said, I need to keep repeating myself it's not a zero sum game. If I was to guess their exit strategy, I'd take a wild shot at eventually getting acquired by ExxonMobil or Chevron. Excuse my musing but much like Big Sandy, when do they promise to get production drills (not exploration to increase resource) done, then perhaps add two more years on top of that, how many years has its been for Big Sandy (?) and what makes ASN more special? BLM is BLM. Process hasn't changed much since the American gold rush. Expect delays. You'll see it better if you're on the ground.
Sidenote: I do not hold a crystal ball and do not know how well ASN will fare. Simply, they are not within our sights to acquire. They do however already have quite the interest. If Chinese and American investors compete for shareholding, that's good for the company.
There are only three lithium mining companies today with projects within the continental US that I'd wager my money on, at least today (could change tomorrow). That's AKE, AZL and INR. AKE is an obvious, well managed company and known lithium producer. AZL only entered our portfolio based solely on Prairie Lithium project acquisition. INR not sure it's publicly known so let's just drop word, Chevron.
The highest risk has the highest reward, so AZL is the compelling case. Especially since we believe the risk is overblown, the market blinded by Big Sandy faux pas and BLM delays and overblown cost, have ignored or have yet to diligence Prairie Lithium (the company and its project) the entity prior to AZL's acquisition, Zach Maurer and team et al. We are very confident to achieving producer status Q1 2025 with forecast capex of $50-$100M, prior to moving to modular staggered rollout (which the company hasn't decided on yet the how and approach) that will like cost $250M (for later cap raise), then the big roll out if to dominate the market that will probably cost USD1B (for Nasdaq IPO cap raise).
ASN is a watch and see for me. As you can see, we can somewhat predict cap raise and timelines for AZL but more specifically, Prairie Lithium project. We can do this also with INR, VUL, CXO, etc - hope this makes sense. That's the kind of diligence work every investor who's expecting to make millions of dollars should be doing. Of course things can change and we pull out partially or whole to de-risk, eg. EUR... but try doing that for ASN right now - it's almost impossible.
If a colleague asks me in-person "what do you think of <project name not company> ?" I would normally just say, it's difficult. And they'd get it. But I hope the above explanation explains the thinking of the why. It's NEVER about the share price (as you seem to imply with "slipping" ). Always about risks and if worth funding.
Have a nice weekend
PS. Solid state battery won't be in commercial stage until at bare minimum year 2030. Go figure about lithium from the sea - try 2050, if at all. It's all about risks.
(20min delay)