I have a few more comments to add on the carbonate plant, these are just from memory when speaking with Richard and what I saw with my own eyes last year so I can't point to an article, other than my own.
1. The plant as it stood when Sayona purchased it was capable of creating batches of carbonate, there was no way to continuously produce and it was a slow process, they needed the crystallizer and a few other pieces to allow for commercial productions and improve the tones.
2. I saw a shrink wrapper on site but did not see any other packaging equipment, this does not mean it was not there, it just means I did not see it.
3. in the dome room where the pallets of carbonate were stored, there were also 500 blocks of carbonate like the ones pictured below. I did not count how many but would guess around 10 to 12 stacked along the back wall. It was a time capsule of what the plant looked like when the wheels stopped spinner under the previous owner.
4. I have no clue about the grade of the product, my assumption at the time was that it likely was not battery grade because at the time the plant spun down there was not as much need for that quality, I could be wrong but that was my take at the time.
5. The fact that the crystallizer was ordered via Veolia and that at the time of the bankruptcy the previous owners had an outstanding invoice amount with Veolia, means this was in process of being built and likely the blueprints and other engineering materials were transferred to Sayona, or at worst they exist at Veolia.
I have been vocal for a long time concerning the carbonate plant. With the body of evidence that
@GT3loui has shown above and what I have researched and seen with my own eyes, I have no doubt this plant existed and did indeed produce carbonate, full stop!
Further, I do not buy the fact that it takes 3+ years to add the improvements needed for it to be commercial. I see greenfield project after greenfield project that show building timelines around 12 to 15 months, THAT IS TO BUILD FROM NOTHING!!
So what it is the real reason then with the delays, why are we taking so long to make a decision that really requires only a few upgrades to happen to unlock a huge revenue stream????
My conclusion for some time has been PLL. I believe they have been dragging this out as long as the possibly can to siphon as many dollars as possible off of the OTA. I am no fool, I know it takes 2 to tango and BL has to at some level agreed to this timeline. I also know that, like it or not today, we would never be in this position without the lifeline extended by PLL.
I think (hopefully) it is becoming more obvious to PLL that their business and their ability to grow is linked directly to the ability for Sayona to grow, their (PLL's) own time lines keep been continually being pushed out and what seemed like a bridge (delaying sayona) to their own production now seems like a wall to growth.
If Sayona were to do as I suggested and move the carbonate production to Amos, and were able to grow the existing tones to 400,000 to 500,000 and from that produce 60,000 tones of LCE at Amos, PLL would make more than if they drag their feet and slow our growth. its pretty clear to me that the purchase of the Valee claims and the large drilling campaign that they are trying to prove up enough additional reserve to operate a 2nd train on the concentrator. They even say in their comms that they believe they can convert all of the inferred resource back into indicated and add tones. All of the inferred is over 20mt and then more from new exploration.
Under the DFS we show we can produce 226,000 tpa from 25mt of measured and indicated. If we convert all of the inferred to indicated and prove up just a tiny bit more you have the 2nd train, however we are drilling over 50,000m this would be enough to prove up WAAAAY more than that. In actuality 50,000m would be nearly as much as has been drill ever in the history of the NAL project. Let that sink in.
All of the ideas that I have laid out above will need large sums of money to do and to date we have not seen much in the way of funding from the Canadian or Quebec government. This will need to change to move my vision forward. I think equal parts from cash from sales, government funding and debt will be needed to get this going, but if we do, we should be able to up and producing carbonate 1 year sooner than projected and the ROI should be extremely fast.
This who message is just talking about what could / might / should happen at NAL and Abitbi, I have not even spoken a word about Moblan which IMO will dwarf anything being done at NAL.
Happy weekend all.
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