Clean Teq CEO Sam Riggall’s letter to some executives of the motor car industry seems to have caused a few spleens to vent on this board.
The first thing the letter does is make these car execs very aware of Clean Teq.Most of them will have never heard of the Company prior to this letter. Now they know there is a ‘clean’ source of both cobalt and nickel sulphates and scandium to boot – no child labour, no corrupt government or sovereign risk in the background, no environmental issues. CEO Riggall contrasts the current supply chain with its inherent negatives with what is on offer with such materials sourced out of Australia with Clean Teq. Of course the letter is an advertisement for Clean Teq – my view is that if one of these auto maker CEO’s makes contact and actually locks in an off take agreement and perhaps even enters a partnership the others will be in some difficulty and envious. The letter highlights the major issue for the industry where the potential demand is in excess of the capacity to supply where new mines take up to 10 years to get into production and here we have Clean Teq ready to go within about the next 3 to 4 years which is just about the same time the major auto manufacturers will be swinging over to EV’s. Set out to create some tension between the auto makers you bet – nothing wrong with that strategy. Of course nickel and cobalt can be had from elsewhere but one of the benefits with Clean Teq is that it produces the metals in sulphate form directly because of the source deposit - simply meaning it comes without significant hard metal costly downstream processing to achieve the sulphate form.
The build of the processing plant will be an expensive exercise. That is well known. Whether it is done via a cap raising or joint venture (with a car company?) is going to meanas Iunderstand it significant dilution for shareholders but with associate Robert Friedland involved I expect a very good outcome. And given Friedland’s extensive experience in world-wide metals production he also adds to the package that Clean Teq represents. And given Friedland’s association withSam Riggall goes back many years – back to the initial Olu TogoiI days - if he was unhappy about anything to do with Riggall as some commentators here seem to think there is then he would have bailed ages ago.
This letter is certainly no cry for help, it is not written by someone who is deranged and crazy (gee I would be careful of those words in a public forum even if I was a barrister) – it is clearly designed to put Clean Teq in front of the auto execs and that it does both subtlely and powerfully.
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