I don’t care much for the Chile alternative due to the higher...

I don’t care much for the Chile alternative due to the higher fees and its government’s somewhat unfriendly attitude, but the same could happen in Argentina, especially if the government changes. I do hope Martin gets along with Cristina just in case...

As you mentioned, a spodumene mine in Australia would be costly, but it does provide another pathway to send product to Japan, China and Korea. They could consider either a JV or taking a small stake (e.g., 10%) on an Australian Company in a similar manner as GXY recently did with A40. They could progressively increase the percent and eventually takeover, but I realize this is a bit of a reach at present. Also, even though spodumene provides diversification, it also requires knowledge of the operation and a learning curve. However, it is also true that learning brine processing is much harder as GXY is finding and ORE found in the past. It would be nice if ORE and GXY could somehow help each other, but this may be wishful thinking. I actually like better the idea of a mine/converter in Canada to get into the North American market. I realize that this has not been easy for a few (e.g., SYA, Nemaska) and less so for others at early stages (GXY), but I think I favor Canada over Australia due to the American market and less crowded lithium field.

Although Cauchari does not provide much geographical diversification, it is an obvious alternative for the funds. Advantage Lithium is a good partner and has done an excellent job in exploring the resource (4.8 MT LCE) plus its proximity to Olaroz provides lots of synergies between the companies. However, Advantage only has a few million in cash with a PFS scheduled this quarter. I don’t think they can do the project without ORE’s help, a lot of help! This was probably the plan all along as Advantage was basically ORE’s explorer in Cauchari, but this is even more evident now under the current global lithium environment. Having ORE buy Advantage is probably the easiest path. However, there may be other arrangements for the two companies in terms of funding a plant in Cauchari, conveying their brine to ORE, etc. I will let the companies sort it out as the details would probably be beyond my expertise.

Advantage’s Cauchari’s project footprint is odd and a bit inconvenient in that it is on both sides of LAC’s property. A possibility I have considered, even though I am not convinced by it, would be to conduct additional exploration in Cauchari’s to increase the resource considerably to say at least 7-8 MT LCE and to put for sale the area to the east of LAC’s site. This would be similar to GXY’s recent sale to POSCO. The sale may provide perhaps $200M-$300M, which would help Advantage and ORE fund and develop a project in the West area, which appear to have better connectivity with Olaroz. I bet that the simple sale offer would generate a nice bidding war between LAC and other potential suitors and benefit the SPs. However, I am the first one that likes to keep all my toys and sell nothing unless the resource was first proven to be much larger. I would be less hesitant if the East area represented a small portion of the 4.8 MT, but I am afraid it may be more than half, at least based on surface area. We would need proof of a much larger resource in the West side before this option is entertained. Hence, no deal now, but some food for thought...

i am not a big fan of stock buy backs or dividends under the current environment. Later maybe.

All the above IMHO and thank you for your post

Disclosure: I own shares in ORE, GXY and AJM. I also own a much smaller amount of shares in Advantage, which I have considered selling to buy more ORE, but I am hesitant and may wait for the PFS.