tropic.I don't think your reasoning is flawed at all - in fact I...

tropic.

I don't think your reasoning is flawed at all - in fact I agree with almost everything you've said. The sad thing for me is to see such a pile-on aimed at DP at the very moment when his baby has drawn its first breath. He has been labouring away since 2003 to bring this one-time CSIRO experiment to commercial reality and he has succeeded. As for skin in the game, no CEO on the ASX has more hide exposed than he does (132 million shares!). He is also honest and sensitive to shareholders' interests and demands, as kengaroo and others can attest. That is one major reason for my investment in the first place. Like you, I couldn't watch the presentation yesterday but I expect that the observation of DP's demeanour as "depleted" was probably accurate: he must have spent the weekend desperately trying to bring the pilot plant to the start line.

DP's position is to me eerily reminiscent of Gavin Lockyer's at ARU. GL too worked away for years and years to bring ARU to life, but as a cautious accountant like DP he took forever to do it: I sold out of ARU twice out of frustration at the glacial rate of progress. But GL approved the construction and testing of a 10% scale model of ARU's flow diagram, just as DP has done with LMG, and that was the right decision. However GL appeared in numerous interviews and I winced every time he did: he was hopeless at PR. The lame image that GL projected did more harm than good. As for the slow pace, looking back I realize that my timetable was that of a greedy shareholder, not an astute assessor of the industrial timetable at work; but as for image there was no doubt that GL was not the right choice as the public face of a billion-dollar-plus public enterprise. Finally after ARU had received $900 million in Australian government support and had binding contracts for more than 50% of its projected output of NdPr, GL abruptly disappeared from the scene and was replaced by an experienced and assertive businessman, Daryll Cuzzubo. The SP ticked up immediately.

GL was unceremoniously shown the door at ARU, although Cuzzubo had the decency to acknowledge him when he took over. I wouldn't want the same fate to befall DP, who deserves showers of rose petals, a villa in the hills and as many dancing girls as he desires for having brought the LMG ship to within sight of the shore of commercial success after having devoted twenty years of his life to the endeavour. However he has shown the unhappy knack of turning every announcement of positive news into something sounding like a lame excuse for a failure: LMG now needs a new public face. Perhaps a five-year stint as the beatific chairman of the BOD would be appropriate for DP. The perfect moment for him to graciously hand over the reins as CEO to LMG's equivalent to Cuzzubo is when the first ingot of Mg rumbles out. From then on, it is all salesmanship and business deals (but remember that DP has already secured offtake agreements for LMG).

As for the future with or without DP at the helm, the risks are falling rapidly. The patented hydrotherm technology works, as was demonstrated yesterday. The next stage of converting MgO into Mg metal is conventional (see the PFS of September 2019 for the flow diagram). The efficiency of the production of MgO from fly ash can be tuned up through testing of the 1,000tpa plant. To me the only question is whether or not the process can be run for a viable cost.

As for funding, the till is empty again and as far as I know we have not received any R & D refund from the ATO. This amazes me. In the snowstorm of government funding for critical minerals (of which magnesium is one) LMG has not only received peanuts in public support but has been met with seeming obstruction form the ATO. I hope someone sensible in government helps to sort this out fast. Even if half of the requested $12.6 million is agreed to and the rest left for further debate, it would be a huge boost to our finances at this low point.

Overall I think the momentum behind LMG's process and the three-stage program laid out is now so strong that it will result in a globally welcome and profitable source of of magnesium. I will increase my holding over the next few days.