Both ESS and GL1 recently released scoping studies that didn't excite investors. In the case of ESS it didn't lead to the hoped for new trading range above the takeover offer price. In the case of GL1 the share price is down about 25% following the scoping study (but the general market has also been week). Anyone following lithium explorers will be aware of at least one of these scoping studies and may have taken a risk-off approach and planning to buy-back in if the GT1 scoping study is well received.
This risk-off strategy may not be a particularly smart strategy, but it is risk-reduction one. A key difference between the ESS/GL1 scoping studies and what GT1 will release is that GT1 is not dependent on flotation to get acceptable recoveries. This should have the capex cost of this component coming in massively below the capex in ESS/GL1's cases. The business case for backend flotation on tailings to increase recoveries may stack up but would appear not to be critical to getting into production and probably won't be part of the primary case. A second key difference is that the markets have been advised by GT1 that it is preparing an integrated scoping study that obviously covers mining and concentration activities but will also cover Hydroxide conversion. This puts into a whole different category.
While the absence of drilling updates may just relate to lab delays, the market is likely to start thinking the absence of Seymour updates is because there is nothing particularly favourable to update and there is basically a lot of NSI's to report.
