Ann: Webinar - Q&A session with James Marsh, Managing Director, page-154

A few of my takeaways from the webinar:

1) I don't believe the DFS was ready to go. How could it be?? They still don't know what products will be sold - they are now talking again about DSO. You can't produce a DFS until you have determined exactly what your envisaged product mix will be. And off course product mix determines plant required etc - all this info feeds into the DFS.
2) HPA sounds like a dead loss to me - JM admitted in the webinar that (i) ADN cannot supply feed to the HPA plant in Canada as it's too remote (ii) ADN can't supply feed to the HPA plant being built in the UK because they want to use local feed. So what competitive advantage does ADN have for HPA?? They are years behind some other competitors and have minimal (if any) intellectual property re HPA production. They do have an attractive feedstock, but from what I understand feedstock is not an issue with HPA production - the issue is technical excellence in producing the HPA. Also, HPA plants cost +$200 mio to build. So overall I reckon HPA for ADN is a pipe dream at this stage.
3) JM admitted that each product has it's own stringent requirements and said that all will be produced from the same plant. Good luck with that. HPA is highly specialised, other competitors have literally spent years tying to refine the process. The other products I'm sure are easier however logic tells me that running 3 or 4 specialist product streams from the same plant will not be easy (and may be expensive to set up)
4) JM introduced yet another product - rare earths. Extracting rare earths is very, very difficult - ASM (formally Alkane) has has a large and attractive rare earth resource for 15 years and the capital cost to develop is $ 1 billion dollars plus. So good luck ADN with you rare earth development.
5) JM mentioned selling sand - well, if its generic sand the price will be low. If it's high quality sand, again it requires years of quality certification by buyers etc (see potential sand suppliers on ASX).

IMO ADN would have done much better by focusing in one (or possible two) complementary products and developing these with an absolute intent to build real competitive advantage. Instead, they are trying to be all things to all people and this does not work.

GLTA & DYOR