I'm a little crushed about the lack of communication around such critical factors which influence our SP majorly. That said, (and I really do mean this and I'm not just putting on a brave face here) I think that in time all of this will settle down.
The reality is that GM semi inherited this situation from SB and many of those who worked for Core Lithium prior to his appointment as CEO. The problems with the pit and water were pre-existing, the contract with Lucas which they have allegedly been lackluster in performing on and the DMS plant recovery situation all would have been in play upon him taking the reins.
The way I see it, GM has deliberately taken this play so that he can reset the chess board to then under promise and over deliver. This is a bitter medicine to swollow but its a move which in the longer term I suspect will allow us to have our lowest lows now before marching on to better days. We are also at the end of the day, still a company with absolutely ZERO debt (so we're not in any danger of going under at all) we have a growing war chest of money in the bank from the shipments we've already sent and will be sending in future, we still have a rapidly growing resource (and I feel like the focus on the plant has really deminished what actually wonderful results we've had on the drilling fronts recently) and while the price has certainly come off the stove for Spodumene compared to only 6 months ago or so the fact of the matter is that demand is still outstripping supply, supply is still going to be slow coming online for similiar reasons to what we as a miner and previously as an explorer experienced and I expect to see a rebound later in the year in those prices. The next 10-20 years for lithium still look very rosy and I suspect that this time next year the global economy will likely be in much better shape than it is now given some of the trend reversals we've seen in inflation etc in very recent months from around the world. This really is our darkest before the dawn moment right now and I suspect a year from now we'll know who the real holders are and those that fold are likely to be wondering if it really was in their best interests to exit.
The Fundementals here are still actually really good. The poison in the well however are these greatly deminished production figures which seemingly came out of nowhere and have played right into the hands of the shorters. Shorters which many of us long termers have been working hard to combat in the public arena who have benefitted from all of this radio silence from the company and now these really crappy annoucements which seemed to have been kept from us for god knows how long.
Am I confident things will come right in the end. Absolutely. Do I think that the production values which have been declared in the quarterlies are going to be exceeded in future, most probably. But put simply, there has been some seriously inconsiderate approaches taken here towards actually looking after the share holders and I'm gonna be super clear about this Battleofhastings, GM well and truly has blown just about all of his good will here with the ordinary folks.
You can't call yourself a quiet achiever if your achievements are backwards, your not being forthcoming with your holders about whats happening and your not precieved as lifting a finger to defend your company's value from attack by shorters. At that point, you can spin it whatever way you like but your not sellng it to anyone and every day that goes by that Share holders percieve performance to be sub par and to be treated like mushrooms, is a day where you gain one more enemy who's gonna be here advocating for your ass to be bounced to the curb.
I suspect having just caught up on 500 odd comments or so after being offlline the last week that he is in serious danger of an SGM removing him and anyone else on the board the lynch mob deem responsible for this cataclysmic crash in share price if they don't seriously start kicking some goals and communicating soon. That AGM is not far away and personally, if I don't see some radical improvement, I'm not gonna defend them anymore. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for this quarter but there needs to be radical change in the way they publically conduct themselves and it needs to happen NOW.
We hired a new PR person not too long ago, this is the point where the board really need to start listening to her to stop the bleeding and get onto regular affirmative communication which sells the positives to the wider world. We have so much working for us. We need to market this better because the market in this age doesn't care much for the strong silent types anymore.
Regular news MUST be forthcoming if public sentiments (and a recovery in share price) are to change regarding the company and the total radio silence and having to rely on the likes of stu360 and other holders doing their own private investigating to know what's going on with our own bloody company is unacceptable. End of story.
That said, I do think GM is a man of action rather than a man of words and it looks like the clearing of house earlier when he took over probably had good reason in retrospect, along with putting the extra shifts on to get the plant up and running and implementing these process improvement strategies. For these reasons, I'm not prepared to throw the baby out with the bath water YET. But if by chance he is reading this, it would behove him to know that the ice he is skating on is getting mighty thin and starting to seriously crack and groan beneath him.
Going forward, any kind of semi significant improvement in the current situation needs to be shouted from the rooftops. If they improve the recovery rate 1 or 2%, there needs to be a small annoucement. If they manage to get the cost per ton down 10 or 20 bucks for the month etc there needs to be a small annoucement. If they manage to hit or exceed the production targets, there needs to be an annoucement. If they resolve any of the issues regarding the production bottlenecks (even small ones) ANNOUCE IT. Granted, some will call it fluff but these are the kinds of regular confidence boosting measures that the holders really need to hear right now to show that things are actually on track and that the shorters are full of shit because I don't think things have been quite this grim since COVID sent us spiralling down to 1 cent a share or SB decided to push the project back.
In particular, I really want to see them emphasise ANY drilling news. We need a resource update stat. We need to know what's going on with those drills, we need to know when exploration elsewhere is gonna start up so that the market knows we have more in our quiver than just Finniss. We need to know about the apparent gold at BP33 and perhaps most importantly, we need to ensure that the production problems we're looking down the barrel of are alleviated and that every time a hurdle is jumped that its yelled and screamed for all to hear that we are not about to go over the production cliff so to speak.
Final thoughts. Damn I wish I had money right now to buy!!! Like seriously, I know things are likely to not be great for the next quarter in terms of the SP (which is a real shame because it was finally looking like the holders were winning the battle against the shorters until this catastrophe was dropped) but wow what a time to actually make an entry if you have the money!
I do have faith we will get there in the end. I do think GM will pull it off (and I do think he's made a very calculated move to air all of the dirty laundry now to deliberately reset things and that he's already got the ball in motion to actually get stuff genuinely improve on the ground with process improvement) but that if there isn't some serious tangible improvement in the situation (and also that share price) then people aren't going to forgive him or anybody else again that they perceive as not doing their bloody job at the next AGM or SGM.
Time will tell. But I am cautiously optomistic we'll come through.
CXO Price at posting:
66.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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