General Discussion Topics, page-128064

Thanks Ian, a good article and a short read. The conclusion was also interesting
Full article here
https://www.marketindex.com.au/news/why-core-lithiums-mine-closure-was-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg#:~:text=The%20company's%20Savannah%20mine%20has,discount%20to%20pre%2Draise%20levels.

About the author





What do all these stocks have in common? Good question. That was opined on the 5 battery minerals companies highlighted (Core (Lithium), Jervois (Cobalt), Hastings (Rare Earths) and Poseidon + Panoramic (Nickel)).

The article highlighted a few projects that might follow the tip of the iceberg (being Core Lithium in the lithium sector). As far as Lithium sector it references Arcadium's Mt Cattlin mine (formerly AllKem's and formerly Galaxy) and MinRes' Bald Hill (just recently acquired out of administration from Alita - a long story there). No concerns from me (owning both Allkem and Minres) as the TopCo balance sheets are very strong. But its worth looking a little deeper at the projects

Mt Cattlin (from AKE FY23 Financial Results - 30 June 2023)

Now the figure to look at is the Unit Cash Costs of Production (and its FOB Esperance) being US$909/t
Looks high right?
Everything in context though



and perhaps more importantly the guidance



A further update in the Qtr ending Sep 30, 2023 was as follows:



Commodity mining is a volume business after all.


IMO, Mt Cattlin is a pretty good benchmark for NAL (which still has to grow into its actual "nameplate" - still feel I have never gotten a good answer from SYA as to what that is (volume AND grade)).

If you are really interested in comparing Mt Cattlin with NAL I'd recommend spending some time on this release from Allkem
https://www.allkem.co/investors/asx-announcements#
where project economics are reviewed for Stage 4 (which started in Oct'23)





This last little puzzle piece is important ... what was conservatively lower in H123 appears as overly optimistic and the end of H223 (i.e. in the same 12 months). Also important to note ... there is an OTA in place for Mt Cattlin SC ... fully contracted at the beginning.


@UndR8ed Cat Guidance of US$850/t ... for SC5.4 (ish) ... happy with that for NAL??? Be a lot happier with US$636/t as long term cash cost ...

It will be very interesting to compare the performance of the 2 mines for their respective Dec quarters.

I would be very surprised if Arcadium suspended production from Mt Cattlin ... so disagree with the author.