I agree, Steve. Things haven't been handled at all well this...

I agree, Steve. Things haven't been handled at all well this year. I thought from the beginning that the six-month postponement was a clear sign that management are frightened of being stuck holding a white elephant (Renard). If the lithium price never recovers they will be proven right to have taken that action I guess. The story put forward that the delay was because it was in some way more advantageous for negotiations with a strategic partner sounds illogical. As far as I can see it's just weakened our negotiating position. The way it's looking at the moment we're basically on our knees begging someone to give us money - and if anyone does they're going to want more than their pound of flesh for it.

Here's another version of what might have been. Suppose Renard had never come up at all. Then we'd have gone through at least $20M less cash (which has been spent on Renard), saving one or two CRs. Once the last drilling had been completed at Adina and the updated MRE compiled they could have put the project in mothballs pending a lithium revival, and switched exploration operations to Sirmac-Clapier. Then perhaps by now we'd have already established a promising Caesium deposit and caught the tailwind from PWM. Of course it's very easy to be wise after the event.

With just a paltry $40M MC I just can't see them securing any deal with a strategic partner that will be at all attractive for shareholders. More likely someone like LLL would rather buy either the company or the Adina project outright, and that might be our best option, so we could move on to Sirmac-Clapier well cashed up. That wouldn't be a bad result for our directors either, to secure their salaries going forward.

I can't see how PMET is in a much better position either, apart from having more cash in the bank. Their larger, higher grade deposit is just as useless as ours unless the lithium price improves.