I had asked at the AGM if CNQ had received the tranche of shares...

I had asked at the AGM if CNQ had received the tranche of shares in Lithium Bank due to them upon the successful processing of 100L brine continuously through the pilot plant.

Peter said that the shares would be earned after both the adsorption and desorption (elution) stages of the process had been continually operated for 100hrs. At the time of the AGM, he stated that only the adsorption stage had been completed. He expected the elution stage to be achieved in around 2 weeks... ie around now.

Lithium Bank's release shows further progress in optimising the elution stage but this has not yet been run continuously for 100hrs. Also from Lithium Bank's last paragraph:

"The Company would also like to comment on disclosure initially made on September 11, 2024, when it announced that a portion of the DLE pilot plant was operating over a period of four and a half days continuously for 120 hours. For clarity, after further audit the plant had an uptime of 95% during this operating period. Furthermore, the audit indicated that a total of 29,000L of brine was put through the adsorption portion of the piloting process and not the previously stated 40,000L of brine".

Clearly ambiguous re the adsorption stage. They are saying that the successful 120hr operation reported previously, had operated for 95% of that time. So, if there were a number of interruptions, then it is likely that the 100 hrs continuous specification may not have been met, although Peter appeared to be unaware of this qualification when he answered my question at the AGM.

I didn't pick up on there being major technical problems, but of course there would be teething issues and optimisations that would have required interuptions to the process for both stages. So, it looks to me that BOTH stages still need to be run for 100 uninterrupted hrs to meet the specs. No doubt this will happen in the near future and both companies need to start delivering a positive news flow. Pity Xmas/New Year may now get in the way.
Cheers