Hi 8horse, IMO no way will LTRs AISC or C1 cost be similar to Leo’s, I realise you’ve now invested in LTR. I was too, but sold into the takeover, mind you at $2.50 not $3 
Here are some of the reasons:
- Wages, simply put Australian wages are in the order of 20 x what they pay in Mali.
- FIFO it’s a big cost to fly in fly out your work force
- Power, under the BOO contract with Zenith, Zenith has a lot of capex to recover with all that renewable wind turbine, solar etc they have paid upfront.
- Mining, look at the contract figures, Leo signed a A$520m contract for mining over 5 years, LTR paid $240m for open pit over 3 years, then $1b for underground for 4 years. That’s just the mining, processing is on top of that. Thats $105m pa for Leo and $330m pa for LTR - triple the price
- You mention shipping costs, LTR has to ship 66% of its product to the E Coast of the USA, 15,000km assuming Panama or Suez canal open. As it’s literally on the other side of the World it doesn’t matter which way you go, E or W. By the way shipping is no where near that figure.
- No Australian Lithium company has produced anywhere close to their opex estimate.
- Loan repayment, LTR already have $300m debt and are trying to get more, Leo will have 40% of US$30m.
- Trucking, although Leo has 1000km to truck to port, LTR still has 700km, trucking is expensive in the Northern Goldfields of WA, then there are the WA unionised port costs - probably about even
- A good indicator is capex, LTRs capex went thru the roof compared with its DFS, I expect opex to also blow out and be similar to Cores in the 1st 12 months. On paper or desk top, Core should have a much lower opex than LTR,
- Most importantly LTR has no lithium experience, the COO etc all only have iron ore or gold experience. Name one employee with a background in Lithium. IMO that is a recipe for disaster. On the otherhand everyone of our 60% partner’s employees has Lithium experience, many of Leo’s employees are ex Galaxy such as Tom Blackwellthe Project Director.
(20min delay)