Ann: Appendices 3Y x4, page-20

Thanks Ddog. Agree that there is mistrust accrued from overpromising and 'seemingly' underdelivering. I voted against the options on that basis.

I will counter that:

1. Missing a deadline can occur because of two reasons - the speed of progress toward the 'finish line' is insufficient vs forecast, or the 'finish line' itself changes location. I.e., internal, or external drivers of failure.

It sounds like you have decided that internal drivers are to blame - hence your mistrust is being applied to ANYTHING the company says. It may well be that internal failure has driven delay and you are correct, certainly on stakeholder communications they have failed, but I also don't discount that the company has said that external decision making is very sluggish - see point 2.

I would therefore suggest that you are not presenting a 'fact' but an opinion. Similarly to me presenting my opinion that I am not as downbeat on prospects as I place more weight on external drivers - bureaucracy, stakeholder complexities, geopolitics etc.

If you do place more weight on internal drivers causing delay e.g. management failure, I'd argue that's certainly a strong reason to assume that failure on one front is also a reason to expect failure on the distinct goal of selling ore stockpiles. I just don't agree there is strong evidence that management has failed, rather, been challenged by complicated external drivers.

Given I'm more inclined to view external drivers - that is, movement of the 'finish line' as a driver of finance delay, I'm not as willing to extrapolate that the selling of ore will be delayed. For me these are two totally discrete activities, and I don't see management as actively selling me a lie.

2. I would also argue that on the subject of securing finance, in the absence of information to the contrary of what the company has released, albeit very recently and too late in my view, the 'finish line' on balance can be asumed to remain in its present location (for now...). That is we need to finalise existing financing conversations this year, the UAE must clarify its state investment instrument, then the DFC must finalise legal DD subsequently. On that basis, we're closer to that 'finish line' than we were when finance delays first became a major concern in September last year, assuming even slow forward progress toward the finish line.

I assume (opinion only) it's far more likely that talks collapse entirely and we do all our dough in time for Christmas than we keep plodding out talking finance for the 6-7 more years we'd need to take to 'double' capex costs as you suggest (far more likely to collapse than continued delay that is... I don't actually assume collapse is likelier than success). Let alone 15 or more years at current inflation rate to triple capex.

And frankly, if our costs double - so will the rest of the world's producers capex costs. Everything producer on the globe working toward operations phase will double their capex. That capex will be reflected in the price of the good sold in order to ensure margins. It's much of a muchness?

3. Finally the allusion to 'political factors' acting as a barrier to selling lithium... Do you mean in UAE? globally? Namibia? For now presume you're talking about the Namibian ban on shipping of low value ore for benefication elsewhere. Possibly an issue at some point however I tend to back the horse called self interest. At more extreme ends of the spectrum, west african gold mining projests still get developed because regimes know if they interfere they get no money, if they leave miners alone, they get money. A simplified commercial calculus. The good news is Namibia, while not Switzerland, is also not Sudan. Friendly relations with the USA and the West. And as I've said before, while lithium is sort of in the dumps right now... it isn't going away at a macro level.