Sorry
@ianwill - I'm going to dump this on you......
It was never going to be easy to develop mining activities and projects at very distinctly different stages of development and in ' polar ' opposite jurisdictions. I will include in this post what I feel should have happened and perhaps may still be possible. Essentially , though the Project and Canadian Activities should have been ' ring fenced ' if you will from the lessor mature yet vast potential of the Australian tenements and Operations. ALL in the interests of Shareholders of course. After all , if there were ever to be any sorts of JV's in Australia , more than likely most of them with the exception of say Altura would not have had any interest in the Canadian Operations. Perhaps this is why the BOD created the distinct vehicle of ' Sayona Quebec ' as the first stages of a more formal separation. We can come back to that in a moment.
For now , I would like to be a little more contrarian by disagreeing with some of the connotations being made in regards Canada and moreover the Quebec mining jurisdictions. Now while is it a well known fact the Western Australia is currently recognized as the No.1 destination for undertaking mining in the world - In fact we have 3 of the top 10 destinations with NT in 7th and SA holding down 10th spot. However , this should not diminish the fact that Canada has 2 as well in the top 10 - with Saskatchewan in number 2 spot in the world and Quebec currently sitting in 8th spot with Ontario sitting somewhere around 14th or 15th. So in fact Quebec currently sits in No. 2 spot in ALL of Canada. And there are good reasons for that which we can examine later. In the meantime , lets also not forget that all this aside , Canada hosts 75% of the worlds mining companies. So what makes Canada so attractive in this Industry ? Apart from having expertise in mining finance and mining law , the listing requirements for the TSX are pretty lax and flexible as are the disclosure requirements. In fact you don't have to necessarily have Canadian directories or Canadian shareholders to be a Canadian Company - but it is obviously better if you do. Even the Canadian government doesn't really ask too many questions about whether you're paying your taxes in other Jurisdictions like in our case in Australia. In so far as Quebec there are a number of reasons one might consider it lucky that we ( SYA) find ourselves with a Measured and significant Resources in the
Abitibi-Témiscamingue region centered in and around Val-d'Or. This just happens to be one of 3 ' Premier ' mining jurisdictions in all of Canada and one which is also the 2nd largest contributing Gold producing region for Canada as well.
In fact there are many mines in this vast and geologically blessed region of Canada. However while it has strong geological features , its not as if 20 MT plus Lithium resources are falling off trees like ripe apples. For Sayona , this may also indeed be a blessing in disguise when considering the overall logistics of this NEW global mineral industry. Western Australia may very well hold the title as ' Lithium Valley ' , and of course you would have all heard of the ' Electric Avenue ' in our neighboring Ontario. So if the Quebec Government is serious of it positioning in this new Industry ,I'm going to call it the ' Super Charged ' - ' Plugged in Pegamite Province '. The 3 P's if you like - representing a
Perpetual and
Permanent EV metals
Powerhouse. And why not , as they have the cheap hydro power , the ready available workforce, and the mining skills. What they don't have IMO yet..... and unlike Lithium Valley here in Australia is the tonnage.
So if you all didn't know already - what we have here is a very unique situation for the Authier Project - and also Tansim for that matter if it eventuates. So here we have a project which is conveniently located at more or less at the ' Equidistance ' from Nemaska's Whabouchi mine via chibougamau ( via the Route Du Nord ) a distance of 317 klm's - then an additional 300klm's to La Motte ( more or less Authier ) via the same Route Du Nord - an approx 617 klm's. It is also worth mentioning in this analysis that Critical Elements ' Rose Lithium / Tantalum project is only 40 klm's the Cree Township of Nemaska which was once called Nemisscau ( meaning lots of fish ) due to its close proximity to Lake Champion. So continuing with my background thesis on the logistics of the ' Plugged in Pegamite Province ' , we ( Authier / Tansim ) are then perfectly situated being only another 717.6 klm's from Montreal to where Nemaska's proposed Lithium conversion processing facility at Shawinigan is located. Of course we also have the conversion plant at Quebec Lithium's plant only 64.8 klms away a Val d'Or. However , and make no mistake folk's that if we combine the tonnage of Critical Elements ( 24 MT ) , and add to that Nemaska's ( 37 Mt - which 13 MT is proposed as ' underground ' ) , and then we heap on top of that Quebec Lithium's approx 45 MT - that's still only 106 MT which IMO does not at all CUT it in terms of satisfying a fully integrated ' Mine to Battery Manufacture TO EV Assembly ' logistical lithium supply chain. At the same time they don't even have the Battery Manufacturing ' Gigafactory ' .......yet. Perhaps if the investing landscape permits .....and that is a big if they might get this eventually. However IMO , they can't be seen to be misplacing their priorities and getting their basic decision making ground work wrong. If things evolve the correct way in this Jurisdiction , I'm almost certain that CATL won't be the only one lining up to build a EV Battery Plant to supply Detroit et al .
O.K folk's - I have a lot more ready to pump into the forum , however I am going to cut this post short ( LoL ) by kicking off my hypothetical proposal to management by suggesting that the first thing that must happen before we go any further is to conduct some joint and high level discussions with the Government Authorities -that being both the Minister of the Economy as well as the Environmental Minister . The purpose of this would be to get some re-affirmations as to where THEY would like the Authier Project to be placed and where they would like it to go. Do they want it , and do they feel they need it in the long term. I would expect through these discussions that our BOD would also request some expenditure concessions and grandfathering of any applicable financial tax concessions either ahead of the Budget release or after if discussions are held after the 28th March release. If these discussions are positive and favorable in the interest in the eventuality of Authier and perhaps Tansim , then I would be asking for a token show of faith in regards a certain level of financial backing. I realize this may sound rather fanciful at this point in time , however folks make no mistake I assure you it is not . I will continue with
' Part Deux ' in my next post.
Apologies for the length of my post , but I prefer you have the broad background of where I am leading with my analysis. Cheers to all and hope you all have a great trading day with your investments tomorrow......
P.S will not be changing my sentiment of BUY while I am still a Buyer - Full Disclosure.....
(20min delay)