I see the company's strategy of throwing history down the memory...

I see the company's strategy of throwing history down the memory hole is having some success.

AGY clearly stated in company announcements that the plan was for the 500TPA plant to remain in production for the purpose of generating income which would help fund the 2,000TPA plant. At that time (this is obviously quite some years ago now) the lithium price was not even particularly high.

I'm not making this up, this was explicitly stated by AGY in official announcements. I'm not sure if you turned up too recently to have seen it or if your memory has failed to serve you, but the announcements are still there for you to read if you're sufficiently interested.

I was quite concerned about the 500TPA plant being shut down before getting to anywhere beyond a tiny fraction of nameplate, people here told me my concerns were silly (we've seen how that aged) and when I asked JZ about it years ago he simply told me that the pilot plant had done everything it was supposed to and they were now focussing on the 2,000TPA plant. If that direct contradiction isn't a lie, you can find a justification I'm not seeing. That was the first big red flag I saw in AGY, but I foolishly figured JZ was just trying to paint a nicer picture than the reality, and they wouldn't actually be stupid enough to hire all those staff and invest so much on the 2,000TPA if they weren't sufficiently sure it would all succeed, because that would be reckless and self destructive... and here we are.

It obviously wouldn't have been called a 500TPA plant if it wasn't supposed to operate at a rate of 500TPA even if it was only supposed to operate at that rate for a short time, but it was supposed to operate profitably, indicating it was supposed to be worth keeping in operation long term, obviously at nameplate.