Oh, I am well aware, but is this level of investment enough? Or the right type?
What was the term "Voluntary contributions", or whatever it was?
The problem is we don't know what the path forward looks like, and Milei is no doubt trying to put people into positions who are aligned with his agenda, or at a minimum who he can compromise and work with.
People were saying "he will have trouble pushing his policies through", and whilst I don't doubt that at all, I do think he is savvy enough to find people who are willing to do deals, and this will take time - which will hopefully be weeks and not months.
As someone else pointed out, the irony is the country needs money, and for AGY to get their 10ktpa plant fully built and operational (assuming they can get the processing sorted, or bring someone else in to do it) will take at least 3 years.
And this is contingent on funding, which in all honesty, will probably not happen straight away.
Will they want to see a scalable process first? I would.
10ktpa approvals? Absolutely essential.
How about a resource upgrade? It would be more than nice.
A DFS? It definitely wouldn't hurt.
A more capable management team? Who knows, but surely there is a smell around the team who have been at it for so much longer and have just about squandered that "second ASX listed brine producer" title by delivering a fraction of what they, investors and the industry have expected.
Jerko has been able to dig the ponds and build the plant which is great, but for all that work and for all that money, they haven't been able to prove any of the financials or the processes that will demonstrate the viability of the business.
His ability as a strategic CEO is in tatters. Not having contingencies in place for critical parts of the process is, in my opinion, unforgivable.
Nearly every other company has been on a tear, AGY is in the doldrums.
His ability to manage expectations and meet timelines is non existent. Heaven forbid he reads this post and visits this link
https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/imminent - it will give him another 24 quarters of synonyms.
No amount of success makes up for the failure to operationalise the plant if the company runs out of money and partners move on because of business needs (they need to secure supply), impatience (either time taken or expectations not being met) or lack of confidence in their abilities (even if they get it working after all this time, the process and experience may just leave a sour taste in their mouth).
I appreciate that is a lot of "worst case" speculation on my behalf.
Who knows, everything may be forgiven once they can secure supply of that sweet battery grade product?
