Couple of points: from discovery to production for spodumene is maybe 5 to 7 years, Widgie is dangling the carrot of being nickel-production-ready at Armstrong in about a year, and, also, it was rock chips so it is not even a discovery yet.
I follow a gold explorer, Breaker, that is in a similar situation as Widgie. Breaker happened to find a decent deposit of lithia on their tenements at Lake Roe (WA), called Mana. They actually did some drilling and got some actual assay results before selling it down. Given the parlous state of the gold sector and given Breaker would have to start from scratch to build a gold mill and infrastructure I would have preferred that Breaker put their short to medium term focus on building up the Manna prospect and back off the gold for the time being. The company however took the other route of selling off 80% of Manna and maintaining focus on developing the gold project. Not surprising that Breaker is being priced as a pre-revenue gold company, not a lithium play.
But in the case of Widgie, which could possibly be getting revenue from nickel within the next 12 months with relatively little capex, and given its "lithium" is only rock chip lithium (which seems about as reliable as "visible" gold) I prefer they primarily focus on building their nickel presence and run the lithium as seconds, at least for the time being. That is clearly the message that MD Steve gave at the recent conference he presented at. He said having Armstrong "production ready" - not sure why he repeatedly phrased it that way, why not just "into production" - is "fundamental" for the company with the stated purpose of having the company "self funding" as quickly as possible.
MD Steve owes us an Armstrong scoping study ASAP. In the presentation, on 5 October, he said the study would be released in a week or so.
WIN Price at posting:
26.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
