I haven't heard recent comments from Joe on GT1 but neither would I expect to. He is a clear fan on LAC and the connection with LAC to GT1 was one of the factors attracting him to GT1. Who's directing the company was another factor and in E148 he talked to Cam Henry and John Joung.
The directors haven't changed. The links with LAC haven't changed and in Tim video clips have noted they are in regular contact. Joe's been around long enough in the lithium industry that a share price drifting down when fundamentals remain isn't going to excessively trouble him the same way it does some other investors with less experience around how the market sometimes values lithium stocks.
All the location/logistics elements remain the same - The first few years of Seymour mining are at and near surface and of a good grade. These remain near transport links.
Permitting timelines are an issue in Canada but GT1 appears to have this as under control as is possible. They are keeping the mining size to a level where only provincial approval is required and have good connections to the Ontario government. The chances of huge expectation gaps between what Ontario require in applications to approve them and what GT1 has and is planning to deliver appears small. They will still need to complete everything required but should know exactly what they need to do. There is a good relationship with government because if there wasn't, you simply would not get the scenario that played out recently where the $6m increase in the Ontario Junior Exploration Program was announced from the GT1 facility.
Green Technology Metals (@greentm_) / Twitterhttps://twitter.com/greentm_/status/1649001158017691650/video/1
There are two negative recent events but I wouldn't put them down as game changers. The first is GT1 set the expectation they would deliver their PEA in Q1 and that didn't happen. They would appear to have had a substantially written PEA but either needed to make change or under-estimated the time precursor releases would take.
To-date the Seymour JORC results have been based on an open pit mining model but with a lot of flexibility applied to the pit constraints. GT1 know the lithium bearing deposits of the size wanted from wireframe work. I however suspect they are at the transition point were to get the JORC size they know this deposit can achieve, they need to change the mining approach to a large open pit that transitions into underground mining to access deeper seams. This is easy to say but a lot more difficult to write and release. Not having this upgraded Seymour mineral release creates a difficulty - One option is releasing the PEA on time but with lower metrics as it has limited ore supply and modelled facility life. The second is the PEA is modestly delayed and released after the root and Seymour resource upgrades GT1 have sensibly chosen the later. I suspect the 12 April development update also cut material that was written into the PEA and released it as a separate document.
The second negative is that GT1 has put some drill bits into a number of dusters in areas around North Seymour. Anyone knowing anything about Lithium exploration knows that's just part of what happens. Step-out drilling from known mineralised deposits will often have a lot of good hits. Exploratory drilling into untested pegmatites will have a lot of NSI results. That's just the way it is and also what is likely to keep lithium prices higher because finding economic hard rock lithium deposits is difficult.
