"Completely senseless. Auric is a pure gold player — they couldn’t care less about the lithium in Munda. That lithium will end up in a waste dump eventually."
But here's the twist: Any lithium extracted while mining for gold on these leases will fall under court scrutiny. The courts will order Auric to extract it, process it, and pay royalties to ESR.
So much for “just throwing it away.” right!
What starts as indifference will soon spiral into a legal and logistical nightmare, because they don’t legally have the right to just discard valuable ore.
So what’s ESR going to claim? “We want royalties on all lithium mined”? 100%!
And if Auric’s brilliant response is “Sorted, here’s your $0 check,” then I hope they enjoy watching this play out in front of a judge.
This will be settled, likely out of court, with a juicy cheque made out to ESR.
That cheque will help fund real work in Timor-Leste while Auric explains to its shareholders why ignoring lithium rights turned into a million-dollar headache.
