Sorry to go against the flow of sentiment on these threads but I...

Sorry to go against the flow of sentiment on these threads but I happen to disagree with Winsome's strategy of shooting for the perfect rather than accepting, for the time being, the good. In plain speak I would prefer that they come out with an relatively modest maiden MRE sooner than hold off for a massive MRE next year. And no, I'm not a downramper and I remain overweight on Winsome as I think it continues to be very cheap.

THE major hurdle facing Quebec lithium developers is not the winter or the distances. Rather it is the permitting process, particularly by the Quebec provincial authorities. Not only is the process agonisingly long, as the boss of Allkem has pointed out it is open ended (unlike the parallel process by the national authorities which is also prolonged but at least is required to work to set time limits). It took Critical Elements about 5 years to get provincial permitting for its Rose project and it is at least that long for Allkem to have its James Bay project permitted. My view is that Winsome needs to get on with the permitting process sooner rather than later. And yes I know Winsome says they've started some of the work but neither Critical Elements nor (what is now) Allkem initially lodged their applications from a cold start. Both had done plenty of preliminary work in the lead up to lodging their applications but still the processes took at least 5 years. The Canucks excuse these woeful timelines by saying they are better than the yanks. But when it comes to spodumene they are not competing against the US but are competing against WA and Brazil and some African countries.

The key motivator for all explorers and developers should be to turn a buck. As long as they don't have cash flow they risk diluting the value of existing shareholders. Typically developers bring forward the cash flow by staging developments (which also is a solid way of managing all sorts of other risks). In my view Winsome's delay in turning on the cash spigots is riskier than if it were to be working towards a staged development of Adina.

I can think of two reasons why Winsome is aiming for the "perfect" over the good: they expect they will be a take-over target and are trying to stay below the radar for as long as possible so that a predator has to pay for 100mt of MRE rather than say 35mt. Maybe, but were a predator to strike now they would only be buying something valued as if it had less than 35mt MRE (which given Winsome does not have a resource yet that would likely be fair enough). The second thought I had is that maybe the hobbit (Biggins / Baggins) is fighting the previous war. It does appear now that Core Lithium under the hobbit may have rushed into development and erred in not properly drilling out the proposed mine. Hence the massive drilling campaign just to get a maiden resource.

Anyway I will continue to hold and watch with interest how Winsome's strategy plays out (as no doubt the Winsome top team are far more savvy than me).