One aspect being forgotten about taking time is that we don't have an alternative source of income, hence why some type of deal is extremely important. It TT had been up and running properly, and the Tantalum price high, then sitting back while being conservative and waiting for all information to come in is fine. But we don't.
There was $12m in the bank at the end of last quarter, plus more in the way of converted notes and options, by the expenses are going to be large as well. 15000m of drilling, a lot with diamond for more metalurgical core work for the DFS is not going to be cheap.
They certainly will not run out of cash this quarter, but at the end of the quarter the cash will be low enough for people to be questioning another cap raise, should we not have a deal done with cash up front.
Cymon, the first couple of deals could certainly have been done without a PFS. With such a large resource and plenty of anecdotal evidence of costs, the first 1mt/a could have easily been worked out with someone. The biggest question would be when will first production be happening. If I was the customer, I'd be asking for financial guarantees of first delivery of product because the companies track record is poor there. Not willing to do so is the most likely reason why we haven't got any signed deals yet.
You keep on questioning the PFS of Pilbara with the mining study of Altura, but Altura have a partner that has seen enough to put in money already and will have no trouble raising the rest of the cash to build the mine and plant. PFS,DFS,BFS becomes irrelevant in such a situation. They made up their own minds that there was enough for a mine before putting in the cash. They have enough confidence in the miners that they will get the job done. The studies are for the requirements of the market only now from Altura's perspective.
At present PLS have no such luxury. We have NO offtakes, but hopefully will very soon. As soon as we do the price will rocket, no doubt in my mind about that at all.
There is the possibility of when we and Altura come online at about the same time of there being a sudden market glut, which will suit the Chinese down to the ground, by crashing prices and building stockpiles at the same time, but longer term I'm more bullish than SOS in lithium as I consider by 2025 the uptake of EVs will be massive, much higher than most predict and so will be the growth rate.
So yes, getting to mining ASAP and getting offtake agreements with prices locked in for 3 years, I would consider essential. The tricky part is the money for the plant as well, basically meaning a discount to that entity.
Another aspect, not considered in the mining field, but I would really like too see, is that we plan the mine to totally minimise costs. This means higher capital costs in using both wind and solar power, along with battery storage. You would think we could get great deals on li-on batteries. Making all operations electric, similar to how Boliden do with their Aitik mine, would mean we were half the cost or less than all other standard miners with huge diesel costs. It basically means we are still profitable if/when prices do crash. It works particularly well with long mine life. With 2/3 or 4mt/a, we will have a long mine life. It could all be built out of cashflow from year 2 onwards, but does mean extra planning in the beginning.
If we are going to be a large part of the green revolution of disruptive technology, we should be leading by example.
PLS Price at posting:
36.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)