We are so lucky, it's unbelievable.
In many aspects of course.
You can name them, starting from finding a very rare deposit, TG and his good team, etc...
But there is one luck, it's bigger than all of them.
It's the stupidly or slowness of the managements of those major miners and related companies.
They acted so slow, they ignored LTR's exploration activity even though they were in lithium business..,
they let LTR to grow and come to this incredible point.
Of course we thank to them all.
If they could have been a little bid smart and doing their jobs properly we wouldn't be able to get any more than 50c for a takeover bid.
Now we are asking 10 times more than...
I wrote this post below on October 19 2019.
3.5 years ago.
Price was 9.8c when made that post.
Please read it.
See the reasons I was listing why WES should have ought LTR.
It is still valid...
But they waited 3.5 years to make this move.
Now they will have to pay at least 60x of the price of old times.
"You don't need great opportunities very often, once in a lifetime is enough"
My post #:40964719 on 19/10/2019
Only reading the yellow highlighted sections will be enough.
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I must say here now that Wesfarmers has become my favourite "prospective buyer"
. Some strategic factors have changed over the time and Wesfarmers is now looking much more close to be the number1 buyer. They are as below;
LTR's KV deposit is getting bigger and bigger over the time so is the price tag on it
. My estimation for its value is $890m for 125mt @1.3% Li2O. Now this much money has gone over the limits of many prospective buyers IMO. So we can eliminate some of the prospective buyers we thought about before.
First of all Wesfarmers KDR bid showed that it was the highest bidder for 50% of Earl Grey deposit. The others couldn't pay more than Wesfarmers even though we know that they were all looking to buy a good hard rock resource. They are; RIO, FMG, Albemarle, Tianqi, SKI...
RIO and FMG are big companies but they are acting very slow. RIO was the underbidder when Tianqi bought SQM's 24% share for over US$4.3b (AU$6.3b) last year.
IMO, Tianqi's move and paying so much money for SQM was wrong because brine resources are not much valuable anymore, they could have bought KDR's share at much cheaper price. The reason for buying SQM's 24% share that they wanted to strengthen the Chinese monopoly in lithium business. But it didn't work.
The spodumene based resources are more strategic for EV battery making. And Chinese companies don't have that much power in Australian hard rock resources. The main players are in Australia are 1) Albermarle 2) Tianqi 3) Mineral Resources 4) SQM 5) Wesfarmers 6) Pilbara Minerals
Can Tianqi try to buy LTR's KV deposit?
I know they are working on and watching LTR's project (both KV and Buldania) very closely
however the WES - KDR deal tells me that Wesfarmers should and will make another move to buy another resource to be the main player in Australia. If they buy LTR they will no.1 ahead of Albemarle.
Albermarle paid too much (overpaid) to Mineral Resources. They paid AU$1.65b for 115mt @1.2% Li2O resource in Pilbara. The deposit has high iron and mica content hence processing cost is high. Also, the important part is making a chemical plant in Pilbara or Port Hedland is no viable. They are now thinking to ship the concentrate to a chemical plant which they may build around Perth. Their concentrate plant is nearly finished but no decision is yet made for the chemical plant. That's why Albemarle can't be one of the prospective buyer IMO.
SK Innovation was also my favorite before but now I think they will have to stick with upstream processing of lithium battery industry. They have strong commitments in battery making industry (gigafactories and other parts battery). It should be better for them to buy the lithium hydroxide from Tianqi Lithium and Wesfrarmers and make their battery cells and cathodes (anodes when lithium metal batteries become popular).
If Wesfarmers buy KV deposit then both of their deposits would be close to Perth area where their chemical plants will be built at.
Because Wesfarmers is now involved in lithium business I don't think they will stop only with Earl Grey deposit. They will go all the way to the bottom of it IMO.
Wesfarmers plans to be integrated upstream processor but does not involve to downstream business side of it. Then they must try to have as much resources as they could have in Australia. LTR"s KV deposit is the only option for them
.
Wesfarmers has the money as well. They gave up buying Lynas's REE business which they offered $1.5b. That money might be free to use in lithium business now.
As we all know
Tim Goyder's brother Richard Goyder was the CEO and MD of Wesfarmers from 2005 to 2017.
I mean there might be a strong connection with LTR and Wesfarmers already.
Time will tell the truth.
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Old post ends here...
(20min delay)