It's obvious to me that there is a big buyer and building a stake as the buying pressure is continuing for some time.
I also don't think that it's an Australian based buyer because the resource is at the hearth of the US. There are many funds might be very much interested in this resource and also there are large lithium companies like ALB, SQM and many OEM's like Tesla, Ford, GM, etc which would like to secure a resource inside the US.
The North American funds have a very strong apatite to buy in lithium resources.
As you know
Electrification and Decarbonization AIE LP Fund which is managed by Waratah Capital Advisors is already in IR1. They have bought 1.5m shares at $1 price (with 2-to-1 options) in January then they got 2m shares (with 2-to-1 options) in the last placement.
This fund already has 3.5m shares and 1,75m options. That's over 4% of SOI.
They might be still buying on market as they know the resource very well. Maybe other funds are also buying and competing with each other.
The beauty of Beecher resource is that the spod bearing high grade pegmatites are starting from the surface. That is very important. It's not like the other projects which have a lots of individual pegmatites spreading out in 3km to 7km "strike length". It's condensed in a small area like Greenbushes which has a very high grade resource in only one pit as you can see below.
It's the "Lithium rich C3 pit" and covers only 55 acres. The Tantalum pit Cornwall is very old and not being processed atm. The C2 lithium zone has very low grade and they are not even mining it. The process plant is very small as you can see on the image.
So, you don't need a huge area to produce spod concentrate. Also see the Greenbushes town is next to the tantalum pit and this project which is the largest and best lithium mine in the world, is inside a forest.
The Talison Lithium has 170mt at 2% grade in this project. If IR1 can prove a 4-50mt in Beecher project that'd be fantastic.
Let's wait and see what the time brings.
(20min delay)