Von, some good points and thank you. Your input has forced me to look closer into the reliance of the small scale LMax plant on Sodium Silicate credits.
My personal conclusions are this, even at very small scale. The LMax plant delivers an IRR and profit margin over double that of EMH roasting (even compared to their larger scale model) for only 10% of the capital outlay and scalable as revenues allow and that's with purchasing the concentrate.
As
@2Chance points out, we can not calculate economies of scale. Therefore it's apples and oranges. Before REM came aboard, Keith announced a dual process evaluation during the PFS. This didn't happen, why?
REM bought in big a month later and took care of their problem with the 77,000 t/pa of Sodium Sulfate that Bacanora needs to dispose of each year??
I would like to have seen additional trials completed (as announced) and a side by side comparison produced, given the scoping studies were so positive.
Mind you, never has Sodium Silicate been mentioned anywhere/ever regarding EMH. It has always quoted $1500 net of SOP only. But I'm not discounting the possibility that it could be a significant by-product from EMH ore. As it is from the Lepidolite trials.
My enquiries have led me to the advice that as economies of scale increases with LMax, reliance upon Sodium Silicate credits decreases and production levels of by-products can be adjusted as desired/required.
What's the issue with Sodium Silicate anyway? It's a saleable commodity that holds value. Same as Lithium/SOP/Tin and Tungsten. Why not utilise it? The same way that EMH does in applying the above by-product credits to their PFS to improve their economics at Cinovec. If it improves the bottom line, crack on!
Either way, this is not necessarily an LMax vs Roasting debate. More so, how did the costs that they've happily been quoting for the past 18months blow out so badly? Subsequently leading to the shedding of what, circa $50m from our market cap? If the Roast provided those previously quoted figures, neither I nor the market would have nothing to question.
Furthermore, I'm no chartist. But this is in a downtrend. With no foreseeable turn around in sight. The fundamentals have changed significantly and judging by the bloodshed since, it's been an expensive error from management.
Heard the saying - You F%#k one Goat?..
Well they did and it will take something big to turn it around and regain the faith of shareholders in a spec'y market. If they had something big up their sleeve we would have seen it by now, not just some piss and wind infomercials from Keith that provided ZERO clarity.
Anyways, I've been sliding out the door since the decision, to dissapointingly now being no longer to say that I hold EMH, sincerely though - good luck to you all.
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