Thanks Jezza. Appreciate the comments etc. Although, on this...

Thanks Jezza.
Appreciate the comments etc.


Although, on this point:

“One of your posts that triggered me was actually your post on articulating that a S2 CR (if it happens) is fine and will be a good thing to keep the momentum going.”

Iirc I said it won’t be such a big deal; at least as not as big as a few here are portraying it to be.
It’s not ideal - I’ve said that several times also.

The point is that we raised $30M in Feb 2021 to have enough funds to build the plant…. Reality is a b!tch and the commissioning has thrown up some issues getting the continuous production going.
So, in round numbers, it added say a year to the process. We STILL have money in the bank, and afaict, as I outlined in a previous post, we should still be able to afford a few more months to get production ramped to somewhere near say 50% of capacity.
We lost a year. Roughly.
This costs money. Fact.
Who is surprised that the kitty is getting low, considering this? Why?
It’s not ideal, sure.
If we need some extra money to buy us a further few months to get the plant output up a few notches, or to provide a buffer in case we need that, then imo raising say $10M for this is relatively insignificant in the scheme of things.
That was my point and I stand by it.


Regarding guidance:
Perhaps I’m less upset or surprised than many others here simply because I’ve lived and breathed mining projects and have been in the same position of having to provide guidance and timelines to stakeholders regarding milestones/delivery/completion etc.
It doesn’t matter whether estimated timelines are provided by a supplier, govt department, procurement teams, contractors etc etc, the harsh reality is that the project owner has no choice but to develop and provide an estimated project schedule.
There is NO option to simply say sub-task X or item Y is out of our control so no estimate can be given for that. “Could be 6 months, could be 3 years, could be never” is not acceptable.
In these types of development projects, there are multiple strings of dependencies and you simply cannot leave key items as open ended, even if they are highly variable. You are forced to use whatever information might be available to make a judgement. That judgement is often wrong! Often! For many reasons.

The perfect example for AGY was the original guidance for the expansion permits; iirc the company estimated a process taking around 12 months. How actually crazy or unreasonable was this estimate, at that time, considering that the permits for the 2ktpa plant took about 12 months, the department was somewhat familiar with our project, key people, etc..?
Sounded like a fairly reasonable estimate to me, despite the fact that as we now all know, it dragged out far longer than that.

I’m not pissed off with the company for providing their estimates, as I believe that they are based on how they see activities unfolding into the future - remembering of course that almost every company will be somewhat optimistic with their guidance.
Are there often delays and issues and cost overruns and macro disasters and complications and etc etc that occur? Absolutely!

Imo it is US as investors that need to inform ourselves better, via experience and precedents and education and analyses, to better understand the potential variability and issues associated with the many different components of a project, and form our own perspective on how reality might actually unfold.
This notion/excuse/blame that some have that is effectively “I believed what the company said about how much $$/time it would take” represents imo a complete failure to actually understand the nature of what guidance is and what actually informs those estimates.

I think it’s really easy for some people to want the heads of those who “got it wrong” with their guidance, but in my direct experience, those people usually do not have a thorough understanding of - nor appreciation for - the complexities and variability involved in the planning and execution of such projects.
A project owner who genuinely does not expect X to happen by Y date, but tells stakeholders that they do expect it by Y date, is a completely different story, but I do not believe that applies to this company.

Anyone firmly basing their expectations and risking their capital on only or predominantly “what the company says” wrt guidance is setting themselves up for disappointment imo, regardless of the company.



Not all directed at you Jezza, btw, just some thoughts to ponder.


Imo
Dyor