You appear to be blinded by some preconceived distrust of AZL, perhaps from previous trades or Big Sandy delays (?) preventing you from seeing why Prairie Lithium project is a good investment. But what would I know about you other than a guess? A guess that deep down, you know as much as I do that it's a good investment. Your gut tells you so but looking to be over cautious.
DLE at 50-60% rate of extraction (being conservative here) right now commercially has OPEX between USD3-5k per tonne. So even with macroeconomic risk of overcapacity, let's assume a depressed lithium price of USD10k/tonne still keeps the project profitable, although sadly in such an economic condition knocks out competition (particularly smaller spodumene explorers as capital investment dries out). Not even China, which enjoys 60% of worldwide EV sales and controls critical minerals commodity economics has direct or indirectly influence on Prairie project since: 1) it will serve the US market; 2) second half of this decade.
A friendly reminder that before lithium became popular, we enjoyed a "high price" of $8k/tonne (or perhaps you're too young of a lithium investor to remember that). Where are we today, $18-20k/tonne LCE? And the media just LOVES the click bait doom and gloom headlines with apparent collapse of prices down 70-80%. Nevermind that such prices at $80k/tonne although highly profitable were incredibly untenable, uneconomical and unrealistic in the long term.
NB. The only reason why I entertain talking up risk of OPEX is self-interest, I want the market to be shocked by the PFS. Over-pricing cost by the market means underpricing share price, means "rocket to the moon" (did I say that right?) at least hopefully, no one really knows how market reacts. We only know if things are over sold or over bought when we're there, never in-between. Any way I digress...
List the different risks of any mining company down. You might just be surprised that compared to other DLE projects, Prairie Lithium project has very little risk profile. It doesn't get impacted by geopolitics, in fact in is a tailwind. The project doesn't have local politics risk, environmental risks, permitting, water/electricity supply, infrastructure risks... it doesn't have workforce constraints or lack of heavy machinery or supply of equipment... heck, the project doesn't even lack capital to reach Q1 2025 commercialisation target.
So I'd like to channel your negativity to something more constructive. If you can tell me realistic reasons or God's will could impact the company's goal of completing construction of module 1 at Prairie project, that would be helpful.
Can't say capital investment... because ultimately that's what we (investors) are here for.
You seem to know a lot about lithium mining investments, and I assume from your confidence knows more than, say, someone like me with over 40yrs (I don't want to divulge my age so keeping it conservative) in the market. I'd love to know what you think you know, why Prairie Lithium project is a risky investment.
Bullet point it for me, if you don't mind. Age is not everything. I don't know everything. Genuinely asking, please do share your thoughts without the trolling.
I want to see you profit from energy transition investments too. As I keep saying, it's not a zero sum game.
Cheers
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