FA & General Banter, page-3681

Fellow Shareholders.

In a desperate move to hunt down something positive - anything! - in the current lithium lull I read up on brine based production in the "lithium triangle" (Argentina, Chile and Bolivia) contra hard-rock in Australia and there were some positives there. Turns out that on top of the established extra steps a brine based producer has to incorporate in production which makes him less competitive vs a hard-rock producer there is also the well known matter of water, this time at both extremes actually. If no rain is falling in the Atachama desert the already heavily depleted water table will continue to suffer and local authorities will put up restricting guidelines and if DO rain, it messes with production as evaporation is prolonged.

But what was news to me what that all the things we take for granted and already factor in to the production cost in an Australian setup like worksafe, ethics and standards in the workplace and so on is actually often a pawn in the South American lithium triangle to be sacrificed on the altar of profit. Corners are cut all the time. This has always at least been frowned upon but as the worlds focus changes and the tolerance for violations against the workers rights and the environment is wearing thin more and more of these profit generating shortcuts are criticized by local authorities and unions. Brine producers will have to step into the modern world in regards to these aspects as well - just like cobalt producers in Congo - as voices on ethical mining grows louder around the world. This is all good. For the Chilean worker, their environment but especially for LTR's shareholders (and for Australia's hard-rock lithium companies in general) as it makes the brine based production model even more expensive.