It's not, it is about five months of inventory, if you compare...

It's not, it is about five months of inventory, if you compare it to costprize of sales (as per H1 2023 - taking to account that inventory was higher due to write back of impairments - and costprize for the period thus was lower by 35mm; H1 sales were 319mm, not 195mm, costprize sales was 251) . So, elminitating impairments, inventories were more or less stable in H1 2023

But the question is how much would you deem acceptable without risking operations?

Folks are vastly underestimating how much (working) capital it takes to run a stand-alone smelter. I agree that inventories at OMH are quite on the high side - if I pull up historical financials of OMH, investories were approx. four months. If I pull up, for instance, financials of Ferroglobe they are slightly below 3 to 4 months - but that could be because of product mix - not sure can compare.

I am pretty sure If I would look at other non toller non integrated smelters they will all run at similar inventory levels. I hope they can trim working capital a bit, but don't expect wonders here. The impact of having more furnaces operational (fingers crossed) most likely has much more impact (although with a time lag of course, because firstly it will lead to more working capital needed.... not less).

Sometimes it is a bit tricky to interpret, because they can be time lags, and a shipment arriving of departing just before or after the reporting date can skew things.