I dont think there would be any urgency for PLS to make an offer at these levels, $550m+ at current SP. I called $50m a while back they only took a measly $20M which is now gone.
Ill give them the benefit of the doubt ( probably naively again) that they might get away with $30m to give some breathing space. Another 200m shares at 15c?
No fines circuit running or even been worked on so talks of nameplate are ridiculous and naturally that will mean costs are far higher than originally guided from an opex perspective.
The last guidance from the company in that regard was approx $750 p/t and as usual we all know AJM announcements dont compute with the reality.
"The finalisation of the commissioning of the fines plant is currently taking place in conjunction with the ramp-up of production."
Is this graph the cost of the fines commissioning, is this when they decided that they need a second commission stage, the missing capital from this graph of approx $20m? If so then my $30m aint enough.
That means production from DMS only for most or all of this Q.
We dont have much to go on but this is what we have been told.
"The process plant has achieved consistent feed rates of 130tph which represents approximately 86% of design throughput capacity."
"Altura was also able to dispatch a second ~ 5,000 tonne cargo on 20 October 2018 also bound for product conversion in China."
We were also told they produced 7379t of spodumene during quarter.
Thats 2.5kt per month.
They had 10kt shipped by 20th of Oct.
So thats more than the other Q's, approx 4-5 kt for Oct I think is fair.
Consistent feed rates doesn't equate to average over the Q, otherwise they would most certainly have said so. Based on previous AJM disclosure this would likely mean they have maxed out at these rates a few times.
130 tph x 20.4 hours x 365 = 967,980 p.a (86% design capacity according to the company).
Since when has nameplate become 1.125 mtpa?
FS study says nominal of 1.4 but expected at 1.54 mtpa for 220ktpa.
The only way this makes sense is if they are meaning design capacity of DMS only (unless im reading it wrong) which doesnt include the fines so its not a representative evaluation of true design capacity and will once again mean costs will remain much much higher than guided.
So if we exclude fines and give them an average production figures of 50% and 60% over this Q what do we get. These aren't totally accurate because there will be different recoveries in DMS as opposed to fines but are a decent guide.
50% of 1125 = 560ktpa which is 2.75 times less than 220 ktpa = 80 ktpa = 6.6 kt per month.
60% of 1125 = 675ktpa which is 2.28 times less that 220 ktpa = 96.5 ktpa = 8 kt per month
That would be approx 20-24 kt production this Q.
IMO thats the best case here and certainly doesnt justify the current EV of over $500m given so many unknowns. Go back to the first graph and it guides 50kt of spodumene during the Q with close to $800p/t costs. Thats over double my estimates or close to 15kt for Oct, Nov, Dec which is impossible.
Long story short, more money of some sort is inevitable and ramp up has not gone anyways close to plan.
(20min delay)