I'm not there yet mate. I'm pretty annoyed about this announcement, after months of asking for an update as to where the DFS is, we get this - tbh, if it was easy (and not expensive) for me to reduce my holdings, I might have been tempted today - the curse of holding too many!. I am happy they have finally released an update, but more delays is not what we need. I rang management today out of frustration to express my concern about the way they are operating at the moment, it feels like they are waiting for the optimum scenario to enter the producing market and I feel that they are not appropriately balancing the needs of the company with the needs of shareholders. It seems to me that they are prioritising the needs of the company OVER the needs of shareholders. There is a balance, and they are failing to find it. They said in the statement that if market conditions improve, they will bring the project forward, but it is not that easy, you can't get finance or build a plant over night. We keep claiming that we are low cost producer, so prove it, and at least get the mine to a position where it gets the chance to demonstrate it. Getting construction underway is not a reality without finance, and it seems that things might be tough in that space at the moment (my opinion), hence the desire to get the DFS developed at a time better for pricing and resource size, so that we can develop a good case for finance.
I made it clear that MOU's are not good enough, and they cannot keep slipping timeframes and expect the market to just keep accepting it - now production is 2H 2022, and as I said, just because they say that now, I don't have much confidence that we will actually meet that target. We will probably get to 2H 2022, and we will be asking where production is, and then they will release that it will be 2024 - FFS, if I operated like this, I would be out of a job. If they set a timeframe, they need to stick to it, or tell us a long way in advance that they will not meet it. The company's ability to claim MOU's as a positive got lost when the Ruifu one went nowhere, so claiming that MOU's are good is B$LLSH$T. Unfortunately, todays announcement is yet another slap to their credibility.......Get on with the job you are being paid very well for!
Management have confirmed that we are in cash saving mode, and they are determined to get through to FID without another CR (we will see if this comes true or not) - they will focus on current resources and not on identifying new ones. They believe they are representing our interests by conserving cash to allow time to obtain finance so that they don't need to go to market to raise the capital. Their preference is debt rather than equity - I am ok with this as debt is much much cheaper as it does not attract anywhere near as much of a premium.
I expressed concern that there is now nothing on the radar for the market to maintain any kind of interest in CXO and we will see our SP drop again. They believe we will get some news at least on current resource upgrades as the drilling program develops (not sure the market will care much)...they said nothing about gold, but it would seem that this is our best hope for the next while. Other than gold, It would appear that our best bet for some SP appreciation is improvements in the lithium price - the market will either care or it will not.
Take from this what you will, I'm pretty annoyed though - at least for now. Lets hope they have a rabbit up their sleeve.
CXO Price at posting:
4.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
