The applications of this kind of technology is still, IMO, on the early upwards curve of the S-bend. If you think about the existing competition, metal manufacturing is huge, has well established supply / maintenance / development lines, and the skillset to use it is well established and entrenched in e.g. education systems, apprenticeships in machining, etc, all over the world. Additive manufacturing is still relatively young, and WAM as a subset of that (compared to, say, powder deposits) even more so.
My thesis on AL3 has always been as a medium to long term play, and the gravy comes when the adoption starts to speed up and AL3 can scale up effectively. The technology needs to get in front of people that are (a) capable of recognising an opportunity in their manufacturing space, (b) willing to risk adopting new technology before their peers have proven it out, and (c) willing to pay for the new machinery and integration costs into what they're trying to do in their day-to-day lives. That's a lot of hoops to jump through.
Once the benefits get well established, there is peer approval and adoption in the space, and there are an increasing number of people with the skillsets + attitude needed to get things 'over the line', then I think adoption will become both more rapid and more widespread. We really took a hit with Covid coming along just as the base in Singapore was meant to be getting set up. While I think it's great we're establishing in the US as a pivot, trying to build out a manufacturing technology in Australia is a *way* harder task than in so many other operations and manufacturing hubs in APAC. IMO would be great to get a foothold established there as soon as the US entities and pipelines are well established.
AL3 Price at posting:
6.7¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
