@Stevo111 I dont know, you would have to ask Adrian Griffin that question. I can only infer their motives ;
My assessment of LIT is they didn't have the money to launch an extensive drill campaign themselves and with quite a few other irons in the fire they are pursuing around battery recycling and a cathode powder for a LFP type of battery, plus having recently raised to fund these activities, I get the impression they simply preferred to find someone else to try and JV with and this is a model they have followed with quite a few mineral prospects, where they have identified the opportunity early then kept a share and moved on. Looking at their quarterly around the time of disposal to us, they only had circa $ 8.0 M in their Treasury and they had just raised to top that up to pursue other stuff. I don't think you could drill that ground properly for $8.0 M and that would have basically left them nothing to pursue their other priorities.
If they keep 20 % , got paid for their 80 % they gave away in Galan shares , and have no cost now to develop it, they really couldn't lose, especially when they have multiple other things going on. If there is a billion dollars of spod there they are still miles in front. I get the impression ( and I could be totally wrong on this and if I am , apologies to him) that this Griffin is a bit of a "lifestyle" MD too, he wouldn't want the stress of actually ever actually developing a resource project, he would rather do the intellectual work up front , take a slice and let others do the hard yards of managing a development project. He strikes me as more interested in the battery recycling stuff which is the "geeky" stuff this EV megacycle is pushing forward also, whereas mining lithium isn't the sexy end of this EV story.
Looking at the ground and its over a number of tenements, probably the required amount of metres to drill it properly and given the cost of drilling ( my back of a fag pack calc) , we probably don't have the funds either to drill it out properly without blowing away our Treasury , based on the latest quarterly and again we also have another project to run. However I would rather us raise and get those funds sooner rather than later and drill it out and know exactly whats there. There is either something there or there is not and with the EV revolution now on us, now is the best time ever to drill the hell out of that ground. If there is nothing there, fine, we move on and concentrate on HMW and Candelas, our market cap is justified in my view from HMW alone, so its cream but if there is something big lurking there its a total game changer as 88mph said up thread. Arguably if there is big spod deposit lurking there we could be another LTR in terms of market cap. I still suspect someone is going to try and take us over in the next year or so knowing what the hell is on those tenements can only help if that comes to pass.
There are limits to these exploration licenses too. I suspect that license is coming up on expiry too and LIT may have known that and knew it needs money spent on it soon to justify its retention . Usually its to be renewed one would need to show you have done a fair amount of work there and there are reasonable prospects of firming something up mineral wise with more work and then the State government is likely to roll over the exploration license for a further albeit shorter term. I think after the initial 5 year term and 1 5 year extension term, you have to keep applying to renew it every 2 years. I don't think we will have the luxury of just sitting on it for a few years in any event.
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