GMN General discussion, page-130

lot of action next door: Argentina is open for business. UBS took advantage of the Allkem Site Tour (link, restricted) to visit other relevant interests in the lithium space including site tours to Galan & Lake (Not Covered) along with catch-ups with the the Mining Secretary of Argentina, Lithium Americas & others. A key takeaway from our meeting with government officials was that with limited infrastructure/resourcing, competition between miners would only increase as the sector develops. To this extent, we expect continued M&A activity in the region with larger players better-positioned to secure business with local service providers and the local workforce. While there are many permutations on how future M&A activity could evolve, we would not be surprised if synergies emerge either across geography (i.e. salar) or processing chain (i.e. shared downstream processing plants). There was increased attention around direct lithium extraction (DLE) and its potential benefits. While we note the technology is already in commercial use (i.e. Livent, China) in part of the flowsheet we need to do more work on how it can be applied to the broader industry. Questions remain around water and energy use while risks around reinjection (i.e. permitting, impact on remaining resource/ adjacent properties) need to be explored further. Overall, our visit confirmed expectations that future supply growth out of LATAM will be driven by Argentina (supply side part 1) though we are still wary sovereign risk despite policy initiatives to encourage investment.