Ann: AirGuide Advisory Appointed as Strategic Advisor, page-98

Thought I would add to some commentary here. In the past I have always found this picture interesting, but can't recall exactly where I sourced it from, especially how it relates to breaking China's stranglehold on the EV market (where a number of gigafactories are been built). When I refer to 'stranglehold' I am not referring to actually building the cars in China, but predominantly the 'capturing' of the economic benefits around the inputs themselves - especially say in the lithium area in converting spodumene to chemicals and then batteries is predominantly happening in China, as is in the rare earths field in making magnets and the rare earth related inputs to your everyday technology equipment (i.e. phones) as well as EVs.



The thing of importance too me is that EV vehicles requires cost effective inputs across a host of commodities - lack of cobalt/copper/lithium/graphite/rare earths etc etc will impact cost and then takeup. It is not just a question of cheap lithium and all is good as some like to think, and to that end rare earths is also important in context. Below are some links to battery composition:
https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/breakdown-raw-materials-tesla-batteries-possible-bottleneck/

You could do a similar exercise in your personal technology equipment field (laptops/phones) etc where rare earths are also an input etc etc.

In terms of the above, with the exception of rare earths the majority of commodities on that list are not dominated by China in that supply chain. This is because the producing mines themselves are not located in China, albeit China is taking large stakes in the supply chain itself through seeking controlling interests or large stakes in those mines. Take spodumene mines in WA, China owns 51% of Greenbushes (through Tianqi) and over 50% in Mt Marion (through Ganfeng). The strategic vision of China in vertically intergrating the upstream to downstream markets.

European and American governments must be more proactive in the market given the majority of the commodities above are not located in China to get a slice of the emerging EV market (as well as recallibrate its own efforts in the evryday technology market). But a key hurdle remains - rare earths. With China controlling 80% - 90% of world production, this becomes a strategic mineral (i.e. unless you can substitute it out of EVs and technology appliances then you have to find your own supply source if seeking to break China's dominance in these markets).
https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2012/09/19/rare-earth-metals-will-we-have-enough/

How China influences technology companies in locating in China through that mineral itself - i.e. think your ipads, phones etc - which I posted on this thread in this post - Post #: 41000713 - would be a concern to governments wanting a stake in the growing EV production market and/or the downstraem inputs into those EVs (i.e. rare earths to magnets etc). Unless of course you can find substitutes for rare earths in the various products using it, but that will take time and a lot of time to do I suspect.

On a personal front, I think OVL needs to kick more goals before I personally would invest here - but that is IMO. Having AirGuide on board I am not sure the market will care one way or the other, given what has transcended into some of its other plays where it was giving advice (WFE and AVZ for example). I am not suggesting it was an issue with AirGuide as in those two stocks I am referencing it is not clear how the information provided by AirGuide is or was used by management (or even whether they actually cut deals). But stigma attaches and I would personally be looking at goals been achieved and that is what will drive investor behaviour - and obviously some decent rounds of drill results are a key so as per my signature 'sitting on the fence'.

Also, value is derived by targetting non-Chinese buyers or at least having competitive tension between Chinese and non-Chinese buyers, but from what I have noted in the past most of AirGuide's focus is in the Chinese market so I found their choice by OVL strange to say the least, but that is all IMO IMO IMO

But the point of this post is anyone having a decent rare earths deposit outside of China is sitting on a strategic mineral that some will want, especially if they want to be a vertically intergrating company in the area of EVs and technology gadgets outside a China location/production facility. But OVL needs to demonstrate a resource first before people can dream IMO IMO.

Looks like another long winded post to try to make a comment LOL.

All IMO