I will preface the guts of this post with a couple of...

I will preface the guts of this post with a couple of observations:

1. A couple of months back I opined on hc that I thought at around these price levels this stock basically looked cheap but I had no clue where the price would go and where it would end up. I continue to not have a clue on price direction but continue to hold the view that Winsome offers good fundamental value at this price range. However as I am now overweight on the stock my sentiment has moved from buy to hold.

2. I stuck *kev* - not sure of the exact handle - and a whole bunch of other posters that were nattering with him on ignore way back but still he seems to dominate what I see of the WR1 threads. So, a massive raspberry from me to those that persist in cluttering up the discussions here with school-yard engagement with a known troll.

Now on to the real point of this post: the extension of Route 167 all weather road north from the Renard diamond mine up to Winsome's Adina project.

Winsome's MD, Chris Evans, has said publicly that concentrate from the Adina mining operation will be hauled south along Route 167 to be delivered to the railhead at Chibougamau. The extension of Route 167 from the Renard mine - where the road currently ends - to the cluster of lithium projects on the Trieste Trend (bookended by Adina / Jackpot and Tilly and also involving Azimut, SOQUEM, Comet, Midland, Rio Tinto and Loyal Lithium) and then up intersect with the Trans Taiga Highway is about 160km (I think). A road linking the current road at Renard diamond mine site just to Adina and the rest of the Trieste cluster would be about 110km (I think). This info from CE not only gives clarity about how Winsome intends to get its product from Adina down to their customers in south Quebec it also gives indicative timing for the development of Adina, with the commencement of operations at Adina being linked to the completion of the extension of Route 167 from the Renard mine site up to Adina. CE has said that currently the expectation is that the road will be built by 2030ish but he is hoping that timing can be brought forward.

A bit of history: Previously Route 167 ended at the Cree community of Mistissini, which is about 100 km north of the town and railhead of Chibougamau. Back about a decade ago, as part of the efforts to make the Renard diamond mine a reality the Quebec government and its investment arm, Investissement Québec, did a deal with the owner of the Renard project, Stornoway Diamonds, to extend Route 167 from Mistissini to the Renard mine site, a distance of about 250 km. The Quebec government undertook to build and pay for the first 143 km of the road to the standard of a two lane 70 km speed limited road and Stornoway, using a loan from Investissement Québec for about C$77m, would build the remaining 97 km of single lane 50 km speed limited road up to the mine site. Renard was to be the first diamond mine in Quebec and the government clearly backed its development by taking a 35% stake in Stornoway and in total lending the company around C$170m to get the project over the line. The road extension was completed in late 2013 and the mine began operating in 2014 with an expected mine life of 14 years. (source, here)

Come forward about a decade to late 2023. Apparently the diamond sector was rocked by the after-effects of the pandemic as people stopped spending on luxury goods. This resulted in the price of diamonds dropping nearly a third from pre-pandemic levels. In late October last year Stornoway stopped production at Renard and the Quebec government indicated it would not bail the company out and did not expect the mine to restart (noting that the mine had been running for about 9-10 years and it only had enough reserves for another maybe 4 years). The immediate impact was that about 425 of the 500 mine workers lost their jobs. I could not find any numbers but my guess is a lot of those workers at the Renard mine would be Cree from Mistissini and surrounds. Also, my guess is that the Quebec government would be looking at big financial losses on its equity it had put into Stornoway and the debt Investissement Québec had provided if the only mining venture in that region ceased to be. (source, here).

So, what does it mean for Winsome and Adina? Clearly the Quebec government has been busting a gut to provide employment and amenity for the Cree people living in remote communities such as Mistissini. Clearly the government and its agencies such as Investissement Québec and SOQUEM (which owns the block with Azimut immediately to the south of Adina) are willing to back their policies and programs with real money and practical commitment. If I were a Quebecker bureaucrat wanting to find employment for those 425 workers put off at the closed-down Renard mine then expediting the design and construction of the extension of Route 167 would stand out as the obvious option. With the opportunities offered by the Renard operation seeming to have faded then much of the hope for that area of Quebec must surely swing onto Adina and the other properties in the Trieste lithium cluster. It is never a good thing when a mining operation hits the rocks and when hundreds of people lose their one opportunity for a job but the silver lining could be that the extension of Route 167 up to Adina gets fast-tracked.