They literally haven't fixed the filtration system. They're hand washing cloths and replacing damaged ones, not trialing new types of cloths. It's situation normal (the same as it has been for months).
They're fixing the damaged cooling system, meaning it'll be back to operating as it was before (when the plant was operating as a dismal rate).
They haven't solved any problems at all.
This is an absolutely shocking announcement for anyone who was hoping for any progress. There has been absolutely no progress towards increasing the rate of production, which is overwhelmingly the most critically needed thing.
The deals supposedly being done are the same old story we've been given for many years, except they now sound worse (years ago they were saying the deal was all but done with a specific entity, now they're trying to tee something up and making attempts with multiple entities, in a much worse situation in terms of price and a demonstration that the plant doesn't work - two years ago it was plausible that they may do what they said about completing commissioning within a few short months and ramping up production within six months/within a year. Now all that time later they have demonstrated that they can not get it to work and have not shown any progress at all since around late 2022. The best they can do in claiming progress as of today is washing/replacing the filter cloths which didn't solve the filtration problem anyway, and fixing damage to the cooling system which hadn't been damaged earlier when the plant wasn't working. This absolutely clearly screams that the plant is a disaster.
All that's left to 'look forward to' is the permit, which may come imminently, it honestly wouldn't surprise me either way (they've been finding no shortage of ways to make shareholders constantly expect it is right about to come for several years now, that's nothing new, but hey, it might), but all that would mean is either things look terrible because the expansion doesn't get built because they struggle to get funding, or they get funding in a way which screws shareholders/the share price because no one is going to give them a good deal when they have demonstrated severe problems in making a plant work and the lithium price is in the toilet.
The quarterly is going to show how urgent the CR is. When I first said this was probably going to be needed, almost everyone said I was crazy, the cheerleaders said I was just scaremongering, for memory only Rob said 'Hey, he's right' and now it's just about to be overwhelmingly clear, no later than Tuesday week.
This is a really, really ugly picture. You can pretend there has been technical progress, but there hasn't been a shred of demonstration of it, and any reasonable interpretation of today's progress update shows this plant is a train wreck. You can pretend a CR isn't needed, but it is. Reality is going to bite hard in the near future. I'm glad I sold when I did and not later, but if I was holding now I'd be urgently rushing for the exit before the market properly interprets this announcement and especially before the quarterly.
Expand
(20min delay)
