Watched a presentation that Ken Brinsden gave in WA yesterday. KB of course has massive cred in the lithium space for his involvement in the amazing run that Pilbara Minerals has had. Nowadays he is chair of Patriot Battery Metals which he talks up big time.
https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=FisaP9fRJsA (remove the space between "you" and "tube") KB is first out of the gate.
Twas a quality preso, as usual, from him up to when he got to talking about permitting in Quebec. First he came out with an absolute whopper that the process for Quebec projects is not really that much different to the process for WA projects and on average WA projects likely take about 4 years. That might not be that far away from being plausible if Quebec projects only needed federal Canadian government permitting. I do think the Canadian government has good systems in place for its permitting processes and I accept that they make genuine efforts to make their processes efficient. But when you include the provincial government permitting process then what KB said was a crock of manure. If the permitting process in Quebec really only took 4 years then Allkem's James Bay project would be nearing commissioning not still be just another moose paddock.
Secondly, KB put the blame on mining companies for how unduly long permitting by the Quebec government takes. Fair enough, it would be foolish for him to bad mouth the very bureaucrats that get to pass judgement on any permitting application from Patriot. But it is another crock of manure. I've had real life experience where bureaucratic processes that we were being told had to take at least three months were subsequently able to be properly completed in a couple of weeks when bureaucrats with the right attitude and a focus on efficiency took charge of the work. It can be done, obviously in the case of mining projects not in a couple of weeks but in 4 years would be a great outcome. A bad tradesman blames his tools and a bad bureaucrat blames everyone else. The first thing the Quebec government needs to do to fix this problem is to replace those bureaucrats who are clearly resisting change, and introduce operators that do not equate how long a permitting process takes with how good the process is.
Thirdly, KB said that the permitting process for Patriot's Corvette project will be much quicker because they have already started the process. That one is a whole dump truck of manure. The processes for the Rose project and the James Bay project have taken at least 5 years from when the companies lodged their applications, not from when they started all the studies and work needed to prepare an application. No doubt Critical Elements and Allkem both spent a decent amount of time running the studies and doing the work they understood they needed to do to prepare their applications before lodging said applications. The clock starts for the provincial permitting process for Corvette when they lodge their application with COMEX, not when they started preparing that application, and that clock seemingly is more like 5 years than 4 years.
Another issue that KB conveniently did not mention is that one of the three major issues COMEX raised in its recently released annual report was how to deal with project sites with water hazards, and the need for a further focus on that aspect. As it happens, while Corvette is a fantastic property, C5, its major ore body, sits besides and under a major body of water. I took COMEX's comments in their annual reports to be a shot across the bows of projects with water. It is of note that the ore bodies at Winsome's Adina project are high and dry and from what I've seen of Allkem's James Bay site the same goes for that as well.
AKE Price at posting:
$11.75 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
