Well no. That is not the problem. They say all the bad stuff, and bury the good stuff in confusing language, mention it once in passing and then we discover what they were on about after they have done it, or we work it out by researching their customers, satellite photos, going back over old reports and posts, etc. They are not hiding the dirty laundry, precisely the opposite. We are complaining that they are not saying the good stuff, or explaining the bad stuff in a way that properly puts it into perspective. They just kind of drop it on us like seagulls and fly off back to the sea. The timing of the SDV process has been the glaring delay related communication failure, but partly because the timeline never mattered that much to the real project underway - we just forgot what we were told months ago, and lets not forget that when the MtC mine was originally being built, and there was a two month delay before startup, the directors funded that delay themselves with no fuss, and they tend to drop positive surprises on the market with no fanfare and no build-up - the SDV northern tenement sale which was never in the resources estimates and the 40% MtC mine resource upgrade from the ongoing drilling program being two examples in the last 12 months, and the work on direct extraction at SDV being a third.
As for your previous post about unit values you are incorrect. They are making money on a per unit basis even at the worst case price scenarios frm a few months ago - some 288 per tonne being the worst period a couple of quarters ago when the old pit was running down and the new pit starting, but in the latest report that has improved by some 19% because of cost reductions and in the last month it improved again by an additional 8% and is expected to improve again this quarter leading to an expected 60-80mill over twelve months on the figures now, and better on the expected higher sales prices in the second half of the year.
As we have clarified in other posts, SDV is fully funded now depending on how big you make the first phase. For the modular approach they planned a couple of years ago, which we forgot about until recently - and they didn't bother to remind everyone about during all the SDV partner updates, they have enough to complete and do a share buyback and still have a year's profit left over, then switch to self funding the additional modules from the phase 1 revenue stream, and that is without using the MtC profits. The question is only how big and how fast to go to production. The bigger and faster they go the more they need now.
The failure to communicate and remind the market of what they are actually doing is what we are complaining about - not what they are actually doing so much. On top of the profitable MtC mine with extremely low Fe and mica impurities which is partly why they get 6% prices at 5.6 to 5.8% concentration (from which they have been capturing 50% of the Li todate) and the JB mine (which is probably about two years away now) and the 40 year SDV mine (with extremely low Magnesium and potentially more unmeasured resource), hiding in the wings is the LPD investment which can pull some 99% of the remaining lithium from the 50% tailings they have been stockpiling from MtC which contain 50% of the lithium mined to date. They never bother to remind people this either when they talk about a 50-60% recovery from mined ore, but the test work was done a year or so ago, so they know what is waiting in those tailings - it's like having a fourth low cost mine waiting and not included in the resource estimates doubling the size of MtC yet again.
This company is starting to look like it has so much in hidden reserves that it is going to get ridiculous in a couple of years. It is the fact that they are playing it so quiet, and so understated and thus letting letting the firm be insanely undervalued that is our collective complaint. We long termers know about all this because we have been here a long time, but there is so much potential we sometimes forget bits getting caught up in the short term daily barage of down ramping and it is only at these times when we put our heads together that we start to recall it all from the little pieces of information everyone has collected over the years and research answers to questions like "who exactly are the customers" (because that too was hidden from the start) that the whole powerful big picture emerges....
...And there in probably lies the answers to the question as to why the big holders have not sold out while the price has fallen so much these last few months. What happens to the SP this last year doesn't matter - particularly if you can make a buck lending the shares out in the mean time. SDV is funded and 12 to 18 months away, LPD is funded by LPD and 12 to 18 months away, JB is 2 to 3 years away, and MtC is making enough to keep the business running in the mean time, and the EV brand explosion is going to happen from 2021 (based on the projections from the car companies), the battery and battery chemicals supply chain has another 6 to 12 months of build up to go. Add to this, that a big investor sitting on a big short term loss now, with insane almost sure medium term profits ahead is going to be less likely to exit his position, so if you as the board like your current group of major investors and keep them focused on where you are going and what the returns are going to be, they will hold tight for those returns, making a little on the side from lending the shares if they want, but not rocking the boat by exiting early and forcing you to win over new investors. Retail investors are too hard to manage like that, won't shut up, ask probing questions, and want short term returns so if you don't need cash in the near future they may as well be ignored and maybe they'll just go away, particularly if they are only 16% of the mix. Nothing has been truly hidden - it is all there, just not in one neat package and place.
And with that I think I have finally worked out what is going on.
Expand
