Dividends?, page-9

Yes, it is your opinion, but one that you posted on the largest local stock forum. I am not sure why you are surprised that someone responded to your post. My comment was not intended as a personal dig. Anyway, regarding my opinion, do what you want with it.

The premise of my previous post is that at their strategy day, in early April, the Allkem MD stated it was their goal to become the third largest lithium producer in the world, producing at least 10% of global lithium production. Also at the strategy day they gave fantastic in-depth information about each of the projects currently either already in production or in the pipeline.

I have recently seen several estimates that global demand for lithium by 2030 will be about ten times current global production, which is estimated to be 500k tonnes in 2022. Allkem themselves use an estimate of close to 6m tonnes of lithium by 2030 (page 18 of the strategy presentation). I don't know if lithium producers will be able to meet the estimated demand or not but there should be a market for up to 5m to 6m tonnes in 2030 according to those estimates.

So here are a couple of screen shots from the strategy day presentation. The first is of Allkem's current pipeline of projects.



And the second is of Allkem's estimates from the current pipeline. Note they flag in this presentation that they are already looking to add more projects to the pipeline, including Olaroz III, Naraha II and Quebec downstream but the ones in this screenshot are in the current pipeline.



So based on the current pipeline, which will see all current projects other than Mt Cattlin in production by 2026, Allkem will be producing about 150k tonnes of lithium in 2030 (as with the current pipeline there are no additional projects coming onstream after 2024 / 25). But to meet their goal of producing 10% of global lithium by 2030 they will need to be producing about 500k tonnes in 2030. I just don't see why they would give up firepower to acquire and develop more projects just so as to pay some dividends.

The other point is if they ease back and start paying dividends it is everything but a certainty that a major miner or chemicals manufacturer or car or battery manufacturer will take the company over.