re:Lithium demand surge, page-2884

Idealy what we need is all three, our offtake partners do pay up each quarter we just need them to get their conversion plants on track and take contracted amounts, costs can only come down with nameplate production and improved recovery, so they all go hand in hand. The price of Spod we have no control over other than having a minimum price in the contracts, but as long as there is oversupply prices wont go up so they are all linked. No use producing more Spod than required at the moment.

Next quarter in particular is going to be very important (we know this quarter wont be pretty ) we will have done the work on improving recovery so that leaves production which is targeted at 65-80,000 t , the latter being nameplate production for stage 1( we already know we can reach nameplate production it's more about recoveries) and that guidance will have been given through talks had with offtake partners, any reduction in guidance won't go down well unless they can pick up more offtakes to make up the difference.

At the moment its all about getting to a stage where at worst we break even on production costs ( including interest payments) and then basically tread water untill spod prices and general sentiment improve, expecting much more at the moment is probably unrealistic IMO, next quarter should give us a better handle on where we stand on that front...

What we do know is the conversion plants our offtake partners are building will need all of Stage 1 production and of course we have our own conversion aspirations with POSCO and now have CATL on board as well and they supply to some heavy hitters..

IMO it's all about timing and PLS and most others in the Lithium space have simply got ahead of the curve and it's a matter hanging on untill the curve catches up ...at the moment VW who will be big players in EV race, are only starting to put relatively affordable cars on the market next year , and it will be another year or two before they get some traction and that has direct implications for battery suppliers and goes right down the chain ...when critical mass gets achieved the growth could be spectacular but we are a few years away from that IMO so it's vital for PLS to be around for that ...

Cheers Whisky