I was watching the youtube version and reading the transcript a...

I was watching the youtube version and reading the transcript a couple of times over this weekend. The technology (DLE) naysayers are likely to face a time of reckoning ... but perspective is important. I remain very intentionally diversified in this space. From a lithium source perspective my holdings include hard rock (eg PLL/PLS...), conventional brine (AKE), unconventional brine (VUL, ETL on TSX) and clay (LAC on NASDAQ) and catchall ALB. There are many others. Then we have location ... Aus/WA (PLS, LTR...), Canada (SYA, GT1, CRR, ETL...), USA (PLL, LAC, ALB,...), LATAM (LRS, AKE), EU (VUL). Diversification is key.

But specifically for VUL, what FW was sharing on their specific use of technology for their specific asset - a geothermal hot brine reservoir - is very important to remember as that becomes part of their "moat" (and that's not something you would associate with a "commodity" company .... but I would not call VUL a commodity company)

FW goal was "to start a zero carbon Lithium company" and his brief was to find an asset where "we want this to be zero fossil fuels in the process and we want it to be commercial technology" because "the hard rock lithium conversion process was extremely carbon intensive". That led him towards "adsorption type direct lithium extraction which were very low energy - and very low reagents consumption as well - but they needed heat to work, and I was looking at ways we could use renewable heat instead of fossil gas" and that led to geothermal brine in Europe (which for me is a key piece of the investment thesis for VUL .... diversify into unconventional brine using DLE and a target market of Europe). The absorbent DLE tech isn't a concern for me - quite familiar with Dr John Burba and Dow/FMC/Livent and Hombre Muerto asset story.

FW sort of makes it sound easy ... but its far from easy IMO. It's made easier because FW understands that the O&G companies understand the reservoir physics (drilling/flowing production and reinjection wells) and has engaged the right people from the right companies ... and IMO will seek to sell project equity in SPV1.
"We have a lot of oil and gas guys in our team" and they look at this and say“this looks like a simple oil and gas project just minus the hydrocarbons”. Basically, "it's wells, it's brine pipelines, it's water treatment and then there's a chemical refining step ...it's just integrating those steps together".
Yep simple....

But this is the ASX and the ASX understands hard rock mining (spodumene). It can barely spell b-r-i-n-e. And uncoventional brine = too hard. But that doesn't mean there is no opportunity. Price is what you pay, value is what you get. That's something every investor has to assess. What helps is:

VUL now has:
a commercial producing geothermal plot - we have wells,
they have brines - pumping to the surface AND producing lithium from it (been piloting it for some time - years?)
developed their our own in-house absorbent
and in the next few months the optimization plant (EUR40M investment) producing the first tons of lithium chemicals ever fully domestically produced in Europe. Currently in the commissioning stage and in production in a couple of months.

FW noted in the interview that
"Bridging studies should be complete by the end of October. In parallel with that work, commissioning our lithium extraction optimization plants as well."

"This is a product qualification and training facility, essentially for our staff .... we'll have sort of a grand opening for that ... that will be a very important psychological point, because you it's a serious piece of kit and I think for some people, that's the psychological hurdle that they've been waiting for."

"Then we launched into financing and we're looking at strategic partners - including oil and gas companies, chemicals companies, coming in at a project level – potentially doing a project sort of JV level sell-down, just for phase one for up to 50%."There should be updates on that along the way on the equity side."

"On the debt side, that will be led by BNP Paribar - we've already done the market sounding, very good feedback from that exercise. Hopefully some government support there as well as ECA supports, possibly grants as well. We are applying for those, so that could be potentially a catalyst but we can't promise anything - that's a competitive process. There'll be a lot of financing milestones coming up, and then obviously once we've completed the financing which looking like Q2 next year, that will be sort of the really big milestone that we're leading up to, because once that's done, we're essentially fully ready to go."

Is $3 good value? I think so (but I may be wrong). One thing I learned when I was working was "Never Lose Alone" ... VUL has many commited partners. They certainly are not alone. That doesn't mean they are going to be winners but sure does help that others think they may be a winner.

IF this all works according to plan, VUL does have the ability to build a moat in this business. They have IP. They have a massive resource. They have a process whose ability to scale is limited only by capital. They are colocated in a market that is supply constrained (for zero carbon lithium). They have first mover advantage in this market. They have public and private partners willing to commit capital.