Yep, that’s correct.I am biased to the downside on lithium...

Yep, that’s correct.

I am biased to the downside on lithium prices. To add to my previous posts, I think the world doesn’t actually care about incentivising future lithium development and all talk on it is just virtue signalling. Governments have had three years to promote investment in mine development and there’s very little money thats actually been spent. Just look at James Bay permits for an example of all talk and little action. I also think that China is benefitting from suppressed prices and will do all they can to have a “pay less now and more later” approach. I reckon they’ll even run some of their operations at a loss to keep prices down.

What I’m predicting is a period of suppressed prices over the next few years and a bigger lithium boom 3.0 when the soon to be oncoming supply is soaked up by EV and ESS growth. Over the next few years I think long term pricing forecasts like ~US$20k/tonne Carbonate and US$1400/tonne Spodumene in the Kroll report or PLS US$1450 base case estimate for mine studies are probably more realistic than US$3000/tonne spodumene. In these conditions it’s brine operations that are the standout as they are at the far left of the cost curve and remain hugely profitable.

As a stand-alone entity I struggle to see how AKE will make more than between US$400-600 million in profit per year over the next three years. Constrast that with the US$2.15 billion estimate for growth project Capex and you’re either going into a net debt position or delaying projects out to 2029-2030.

Then factor in 30k/tonnes year production in Livent brine operations at a US$20k/tonne price over the next few years and it can make a big dent in the funding shortfall.