Thanks
@BattleshipWelcome
@Deznuts, did you find what you were looking for? Apologies, but I am supposed to be on a break from HC (this morning's announcement has dragged me back on day 2 of the holiday LOL), so I didn't respond to you earlier.
Languishing share price in my mind is due to:
- General market malaise
- General lithium skepticism
- Significant delays in the P1 feasibility study to take advantage of serious improvements (which hasn't been communicated the best)
- The plant has increased in size from 2500tpa to 5000tpa, as one example
- Having to do another capital raising to pay for the pilot plant, as the team thought the mini-plant would have been sufficient
Speccy stocks rise on hype and fall on boredom and there has been plenty of boredom around here this year.
In terms of your other questions:
Have they not proved the technology yet?
Not an industrial or commercial scale yet, no. It has been proved at benchtop, and it relies on standard industry equipment and reagents operating at atmospheric temperature and up to a maximum of about 100 degrees Celsius. The team thought they could get away with not having to build a pilot plant due to the technology being all pretty standard stuff, but it wasn't to be.
So they're building a pilot plant now, which is what this morning's update was about. That should prove the plant at industrial scale, giving investors confidence to put money in to go to commercial scale with P1.
What are they waiting on for their major plant in Canada?
The feasibility study is the current hold-up. The final design is being provided by the engineers now, or very shortly, which will allow the finalisation of the feasibility study to begin. Once that is done, they can finalise the permitting with the government and seek finance from investors. That should all be happening from April next year.
Are they planning to sell their tech to third parties to licence and use?
Eventually, yes. In my notes from the AGM (its a lengthy read, but its here: https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/agm-roll-call-and-questions.4500771/page-93?post_id=36616223 if you're keen), there was an example of Sumitomo Metals & Mining, a major Japanese trading house. They have a sulphuric acid plant right next to a cathode facility in Japan. They would be unlikely to let LPD build a plant there, but they might license the tech to do it themselves.....
When are the drilling results coming from the latest round of drilling in Europe?
This is touched on in this morning's announcement. They said the assay results have had an 8-week turnaround. Assumedly that means they have received samples that they submitted 8 weeks ago, so there should be an update soon? Can't say. There is both RC and DC drilling going on and assaying RC is much quicker than DC, so it isn't exactly clear which timeline is 8 weeks.
There's also no mention of the further drilling that is currently happening at Youanmi. That was scheduled to be completed in November, with assay results 2-3 weeks later. That would be sometime this week, then? That came from this announcement (https://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistics/displayAnnouncement.do?display=pdf&idsId=02050198)
Hope that helps. If you have more questions, feel free to tag me and I will do my best to answer them when I'm back again. I'm not sure when that will be, but I will try to keep on top of it.
Cheers
(20min delay)