I have background in S&OP - Sales and Operation Planning ( better known as IBP - Integrated Business Planning these days). One thing I keep emphasize in my role is - To get more robust business plan, all functions need to work collaboratively and assess clear risk and opportunities by having more open discussions. i.e. Optimism of Sales team should be challenged by real trend in-depth analysis and commercial and operational viability of grand plans !!!
In that sense, our objective here is same that we want LRS to perform to meet their core objective (which is also quite ordinary) -"Argentina's next lithium company" Really (just like any of next 50 companies ???) PLS:
The World's Leading Lithium Development Project , AJM: Charging forward with Lithium , GXY: A leading global lithium business with prominent institutional shareholders
C'mon at least rephrase it like "The next lithium company of Argentina"
Anyways, hence what we need to discuss here is risks and opportunities on merit.
There is some really good work done by
@TBoner or
@Anush with lot of research. Just grateful to see people with some technical knowledge sharing it with us. And also enough is already said on potential of Lithium or cobalt in next 5 years. About their JV for copper project too. These are all reasonable indicators to justify that SP SHOULD be worth more than where it is now.
Now, so if we want to flag risks for LRS - it should be on valid points too and I agree on few.
The way they handled First drilling news was a big mess, especially when there was lot of interest, hot volume - They just needed to follow others (sometimes its good to follow best practice from somwhere) and simply shud have avoided "by end of FEB" sort of things and should have tried to play it down the first drilling pass results (instead of ending up with all real time sample tracking).
More mature lead team would build on real substance-- over the time with more drilling and better results (they don't need to spruik as Lithium/Argentina are enough reasons for people to follow companies in that region). They should have put it in to bold to market that it is just 0.1% or whatever % is that of total drilling targets or should have told that first drilling results will be declared after reasonable numbers of holes completed ! (proper sample size). I mean does Coles or WW declare their FY guidance on 1st week's sales performance ???
It was completely unwarranted to see steady climb of SP over last few months to drop in 2 weeks !
If I have to assess any risk, IMO it is the MANAGEMENT ! the chairman of COALAR should be more of senior adviser/ board member than CEO. CEO for LRS should be someone familiar with exploration/ strong track record in listed mining companies. I assume with long term incentives and real potential in such massive exploration rights- they should have got someone more ambitious (with hunger for making his name in Lithium history) appropriate for the role. CG's LinkedIn has no mention about mining company !
Everything else in terms of land/ acreage/ Argentina/ Lithium/ Cobalt, copper.. soil, sand, etc.. are big ticks.
One consensus I assume that we all might agree on is that it will indeed be VOLATILE over next 6 months until company can prove it is really Argentina's next Lithium COMPANY with some substantial drilling results to back its claim !
P.S. In my age, it is easy to be impatient but I have tried to test my patience with this one and about to run out of it at @.012 ! C'mon LRS !
Cheers
(20min delay)