Hey Rob (and everyone),
Understand it's a slow news period, most are in the red and wanting to hear something, anything positive, but
@Busted said it well yesterday; I'll leave it at that.
So just on your point 2:
2. In November, stated that everything was waiting on Romy signing off on the EIA approval. We found out in the December update that was factually incorrect, with AGY submitting more "final hydrogeological observations".
Instead of declaring the Dec update as factually incorrect, could one not look at the situation and find the Mining Secretary's staff (understood to be underqualified and overworked) simply overlooked an aspect of the hydrogeological and came back to AGY asking for more information. They previously thought everything was in order but further reading showed up some uncertainties/please explains.
In my job, I'm involved in report QA and particularly with a report type I'm unfamiliar with, there will be multiple back and forth with the author as we get it up to scratch for publishing. Particularly happens when the 'gold standard' or report template is lacking, and we end up working on improving the template and the report in parallel/call in a subject matter expert from another office etc.
Sometimes I feel like Little Britain's Vicky Pollard in reviewing such reports
IMO there may have been an element of that going in in Salta, which is frustrating for all at AGY.
But the government has to do the right thing by it's environment and people, so while they play catch up, we wait...
In something of actual news not navel-gazing, Argentina is looking to reduce energy subsidies:
https://buenosairesherald.com/economics/proposed-government-subsidy-cuts-face-three-obstacles
Note the article focuses on residential customers. Unsure of how commercial/industrial users will fare, but the planned connection to the Altiplano solar farm (situated right next to our Stage 2 ponds) would be a counter to excessive price increases. As I understand it, Altiplano's electricity produced will be sold to national operator CAMMESA under a 20-year purchase agreement. The operator would currently look favourably on hooking up an industrial customer you would think instead of heavily subsidised resi's.
As the Battery Passport implementation looms, reducing a mining/chemical processing operation's carbon footprint will improve the downstream EV's ESG score. A brine operator using renewable electricity would score very well one might imagine compared to spod and crush low grade lepidolite ops powered by coal. AGY may well be in a position to negotiate at the premium end of Battery Pass pricing for their product, compared to those comparison operators.
Half expect a counterpunch, but would appreciate a news/info post as I've tried to do
(20min delay)