Hi Koala, I think you are under-estimating how far advanced GT1 is. Their prospectus timeline had them executing a successful project build in H2 CY24. If they go with a DMS plant then the timeline is likely to be similar to Core's (starting to ramp up production about a year from FID). That would have production occuring towards the end of 2025. The current round of resource expansion is the 3rd phase not the 2nd (an updated JORC resource was announced on 6 March 2019).
While 7-10 year references to get into production are noted by people like Stephen Biggins, the North Aubry's clock started ticking years ago. The North and South Aubry pegmatites were first discovered in 1957 by Mr Nelson Aubry (so they have been known about for a long time). Some DD occurred before Arden acquired the project in 2016. All the typical early drilling, high grade announcements etc can be found under the ADV ticker across 2017 to 2019. The maiden JORC resource for North Aubry was 4 October 2017. As context Core's Grants maiden JORC was 8 May 2017, Core's BP33's maiden JORC was 23 May 2018 and Core's Carlton's maiden JORC was 18 Dec 2018. It could be argued ADV dropped the ball as they were basically parallel with Core, but with a spin-out to to GT1 the right structure is in place to progress this project quickly.
The following slide appeared in ADV's 2018 AGM presentation pack. Note that test work has produced battery grade lithium (although it is Carbonate rather than the Hydroxide option being favoured by Australian producers). You might also note the percentages below are higher than Core's concentration to 5.8%.
While the timeline has off-take discussions in 2023-2024, my gut feeling is that very high current Spod prices are prompting initial offtake enquiries now (There is a shortage of Spod and while a lot of projects are exploring, there are only a few projects that have lithium JORC resouce). In some respects GT1 is further ahead than GL1 because some of GT1's JORC is indicated and GL1 JORC resource is all inferred. GL1 recently announced an off-take. These off-take enquiries may be waiting on the updated mineral resource estimate expected Q2 2022 which is needed to get a sensible minimum life of mine. This updated estimate was confirmed as still being on-track as at 16 Feb 2022.
