Ann: Dynamic Modelling Produces Outstanding Results at Rincon, page-47

Literally not at all the topic I was discussing.

But, if for some reason you want to ask me to confirm these points, “approval of the approval” is not yet approved. I’m guessing it probably is close, but no, it’s not yet approved. The permit has not been granted.

Resource is upgraded, sort of. I don’t think anyone ever doubted there would be something of an increase when they drilled further down and checked, although it is actually smaller than expected based on what was being suggested by the company previously (go back a few years and there was talk about 50KTPA production in the announcements, with a ‘clear path’ to 25k first. Now they’re talking about 12K-24K and the current figures show a resource insufficient to warrant consideration of 50K.

At some stage they may drill further and no doubt would find at least a little bit more, but it looks unlikely they’ll be expanding beyond 24KTPA

As noted in today’s announcement, the figures don’t take into account third party drilling, and RIO with its vastly larger ability to expand etc is planning to drill nearby.

This announcement isn’t actually good news. I literally wasn’t even going to mention it, I didn’t see any reason to rain on the parade, but since you directly asked me personally, no, this is not a positive announcement, it’s a worse than expected result.

The main issue though is that permits and brine in the ground aren’t valuable if you can not actually produce in a meaningful (at scale and commercially viably) way. AGY is yet to demonstrate they can do that and there are serious red flags there. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, they abandoned the pilot plant before getting it to work and with commissioning well over a year beyond the initial commissioning period given by company guidance they still have not made it work any better than the pilot plant they abandoned over four years ago.