I'm not a holder of WR1 but I sat in on the webinar yesterday...

I'm not a holder of WR1 but I sat in on the webinar yesterday out of interest and to see if there were any obvious benefits in Winsome's acquisition that may apply to Loyal. In short, WR1 has an option to buy the assets of bankrupt diamond miner Stornoway’s Renard mine and concentrator around 60km to the south of Adina (and Trieste). The assets include a Dense Media Seperation plant that Winsome believes it can refashion to process spodumene, water treatment plant, three-hundred bed worker camp, and a gas fired power station. There's plenty more detail on the WR1 threads and the world wide web.

A few points stuck out for me and others - particularly those that also hold WR1 - may have other points to add:

1. Winsome believes the road from the existing Renard mine (route 167) to Adina will need to be about 80 kilometres once completed. WR1 is confident of securing government funding from a range of government programs to build the road. The cost of an all-weather road (not just a winter ice road) is around $1million per kilometre. My take is that sometimes the second mouse gets the cheese and the road may be built and paid for long before Loyal will be using it. In short, Winsome will solve this issue with likely government funding.

2. The dense media separation plant built at the mine to process kimberlite ore can be modified to successfully process spodumene. WR1 CEO Chris Evans mentioned that he sees the plant becoming a regional processing hub to allow other spodumene producers in the district -- meaning Loyal and others -- to also process their own ore at the plant. This of course would give Loyal a pathway to production that may be cheaper and offer a much shorter timeframe than building our own plant.

3. Evans mentioned that he is talking to 'strategic partners' about off-take agreements and downstream processing of concentrate in southern Quebec (likely Becancour, Val D'Or or other port city).

4. Evans also said he is off to Japan and Korea shortly to talk to battery plant companies. I imagine that these are likely the 'strategic partners'.

I think this is important for Loyal as there are -- by my reckoning -- around 30 battery plants built or being built in North America right now with zero lithium chemical plants capable of supplying them with concentrate and or on-spec cathode material. This is clearly a huge opportunity for Loyal at some time in the future and shows we should have a number of options for partners to develop any commercial resource we may have.

Overall, I see the WR1 acquisition as positive for Loyal and will quicken the development of a fully integrated lithium mine to EV ecosystem in Quebec.