Hi all, unless Stephan has already beaten me to the punch here...

Hi all, unless Stephan has already beaten me to the punch here is the presentation Martin MD gave to the ASX earlier this month.

https://youtu.be/4cW_deIXA8k?list=PLUm38kI3ZeYt6HRNo4T4KJ0nojVHu2J7a

I thought Martin MD was a bit rushed - too much info and too many slides for the time allocated - possibly not high enough level of content for the setting. In my view to the likely audience provided to him by the ASX he should have been looking to convey only three or four killer messages: Allkem is a very diversified and robust lithium producer, Allkem operates in the lowest cost quartile, Allkem will multiply its production by 2027, Allkem is perfectly positioned in both Argentina and Quebec to supply the north American market.

He also repeatedly referred to "North America and the US" when obviously he meant to refer to "North America and the EU". On the positive side I'm glad he's had a haircut... Interesting that Martin said he saw synergies between James Bay and Waubouchi operations while Pall Graves said in his recent interview that Stephan put a link up for that there would be very few synergies between the two (given Martin has overseen a lithium hardrock operation and Graves knows FA about hardrock mining, in fact he is dismissive of it, I know whose opinion I am giving more weight to on that score).

• I was surprised to hear Martin say that after they had run the Naraha plant for a while, with good quality and quantity, but then they closed it down for some tweaking. Surely they advised the market of this and I've simply missed the announcement.The plant is up and running again now though.
• I totally agree with Martin's point that it is a problem that the Quebec government permitting process has no time limit to it. I am fairly sure the Canadian national government does already have time parameters on their permitting processes.I took his comments to mean that Allkem's' got no idea how long the Quebec government boffins will sit on their recommendations. Tis a bit of a worry for me.
• I was also surprised to hear him say that commissioning of Olaroz 2 is already underway - why not an announcement for reaching that significant milestone? - and for him to say he expects first production by the end of June. That has to be this week, folks. What are the chances? He confirmed 18-20 months from first production to nameplate production.

(This next bit is just me having a spray so you can probably give it a miss)...I was hoping that Howard Klein, partner in RK Equity and suck-hole-in-chief to Livent, could cast his eye over the tie that Martin MD wore for the presentation (hat-tip to musoman2). I reckon the tie was at least two shades too pale and as Howard keeps telling us its stuff like that which determines whether a resource company goes on to success. Seriously, to Howard's repeated point that Pall Graves needs to be the boss of the merged entity because he is a slick salesman, has anyone ever even heard the MD at say BHP or Newmont give a presentation let alone made an investment decision on how polished a presenter those MDs were. Martin MD has pulled Pall Graves' trousers down in terms of capital gains over the last five years and that is the simple truth. I give Howard kudos for being very early onto lithium but he's been way off the pace of late. He should get back to doing some actual analysing and give the pontificating a miss imo.