Argentine Brine Comparables, page-30

The original PEA was pre-chloride plans. As @daando37 and others have noted, in the Crux Interview (11/22) JP stated "by doing what we're doing we shave 40% off the capex". In a very simple equation, all this effectively does is reduce the impact of inflation, if other company's numbers are anything to go by (most Argentinian developers have flagged significant cost uplifts, AKE with the two projects noted above, RIO with Rincon*, LKE with Kachi, etc). So with ~40-45% inflation increase on 2020 figures, and a ~40% saving on going chloride over carbonate, we'd effectively arrive back at the original figure of US$439M (A$683M). Then less whatever amount of Stage 1 doesn't need to be replicated.

I personally find JP's bullish commentary about non-dilutive funding to be quite fascinating, he is either super confident or is pushing himself into a corner. At 30 June they had ~US$29M cash, and were spending ~$6.9M a quarter. I expect this latter figure to be accelerating now they're in construction phase, so by the end of this week/quarter I'd think cash levels would be down to around ~US$22M. The Stage 1 capex was US$118.4M so there's a gap of around US$90-100M to fill (when you consider that they also have to allow for corporate costs, wages, etc). So the question is, can Galan fund ~US$100M in the short term via non-dilutive sources, say US$20M prepayment and US$80M debt? JP seems very confident which is wonderful, but I personally take his comments with a pinch of salt, especially given past assertions made. In November 2022 he suggested 'pilot plant' capex would be US$40-50M, "maybe more closer to 40" and that they were considering non-dilutive funding. In the end, the figure was over US$100M and he part-funding it with equity. My view is managing directors of junior miners have to say whatever they need to say to support the share price in the face of possible large raises (frankly this is quite understandable). At this point it seems a very binary outcome - at a market cap of US$135M then if he can get Stage 1 funded with PP/debt then there's a big re-rate on the cards; if he doesn't, there's significant dilution at 2.5 year lows. The share price has halved since it halted for the raise in May so the market doesn't seem to believe him - it's up to JP and co to prove them wrong!

*RIO announced the Rincon acquisition in December 2021 and closed the transaction in March 2022. In their HY results released in July 2023 they flagged capex increase from initial US$140M to US$335M, or up 140% (albeit for a larger scope, but this is often how companies attempt to cover capex blowouts "we've made it much larger").