[Music] welcome back to rockstock channel and our first ever lithium live stream uh before we even start I just want to uh make sure that we're going to talk about a number of different stocks here but uh and some of which are arcade Equity clients and uh we may be invested in Andor some of our guests You Know cover or are invested in as well but Rodney and I are not Financial it advisor rockstock channel uh and everything you hear is not investment advice so please do your own research a number of the analysts who are speaking or speaking on behalf of their firms um and they are financial advisors but uh yeah nothing you hear is financial advice okay welcome to rockstock channels uh first ever uh live stream we've done a spaces on X before we've never on YouTube um done a live stream so so very excited you get to see uh all the faces as well as just the voices in in spaces uh We've assembled a great team of analysts uh in Australia and the us we tried uh to get some in Canada they they couldn't uh meet today today is indigenous people's day in America it's also Canada Thanksgiving so the markets will be closed in the US but uh they're already open in Australia uh we have a lot of Australian analyst both buy and sell side uh on the buy side we have Darko Kus manovich uh at Henderson Global Investors uh a friend of mine for a long time when he was in New York at Deutsche Scutter and um he was educating me as I was pitching him on Ivan home mines in Mongolia so I think 25 years I've been talking to Darko and a former guest um on Rock section almost everybody here has been a guest at least once but not everyone um we've been meaning to have Anthony Kavanaugh uh another asset manager at Chester asset management but you might have seen him a couple of times on the money of mine podcast uh talking about lithium and uh he's going to share some of his ideas as well uh also on the buy side we have Ernie Ortiz in New York uh not a fund but a royalty uh lithium royalty Corp you probably have seen him uh through our most recent interview in July uh called rational optimism uh and I'm gonna ask Ernie to to share some of his macro views um but the the Crux of or the the the the the impetus for putting this together now was uh the news last week of Rio acquiring uh Arcadium and we're going to use that as a a starting point to talk you know very broadly this could go longer than an hour uh we'll see how how we go uh but let me introduce the rest of the guests uh we have Trent Barnett in Perth Yas Harley's uh Hayden baristo uh who we've not had on your um the podcast before but uh ex mcari now argonut also in Perth Sam Catalano um I forget where you're based Sam you're on mute brisb guys Brisbane okay Brisbane um s at Wilson's advisory he commented on the Rio deal on LinkedIn as well uh David debom we've had frequently TD Cowen uh based in the New York area and uh we swapped out uh Mike uh Teran of black swaddle he couldn't make it at the last minute uh the software enables us to have eight people uh but Tim Goldsmith uh is currently a non-executive director of panta minerals which has a Arkansas you know kind of dle story but so the reason I wanted him on the podcast is that um he was the CEO of ringcon and responsible for selling that ringcon asset to riotinto in 2021 uh and of course my partner Rodney Hooper here uh before we get in I just want to remind everybody as we often do here uh if you like this uh live stream you know please like subscribe uh to rockstock channel you know make a comment you can comment live here today actually uh if you do comment um you could ask some questions to us we are going to look at the the chats and and I'll see if I can answer or or ask your questions you know to the viewers um and uh yeah with that [Music] um I guess I uh want to start you know I have a list of questions like this so the rcade equity scoreboard um has has been running you know in September I speculated I wrote the last lithium bow it was called better bid lithium the scoreboard looked better bid on balance and then the double on tanu was at oh riotinto you know better bid for Arcadium and it really looks like as soon as the market started turning they uh acted you know very quickly uh but we've had a run further since then I have this is a list of uh lithium stocks I'm following ordered by uh you know percentage up from their 52 we low so Q2 medals which has had very good drill results in um and they they've been on rockstock channel before uh they're up 722 per. uh other companies even Savannah Arcadium obviously you know but Vulcan you know all a whole bunch of stocks up you know more than 50 to 100% from their 52e lows um but the lithium price hasn't been rising you know too much so I guess uh let's start um I guess uh I'm mindful of uh the location it's like 10 o'clock you know in Brisbane and uh and Sydney um you know Darko uh as a fun manager you've been following riotinto for a long time we we were talking before this does anyone think you know this is not a good deal for Rio everyone said it's a good deal for Rio um a lot of people think it wasn't such a good deal um for Arcadium even though it was a 90% premium um but darker why don't you give we G that's going to be the launching Port is is to discuss you know from an Arcadian perspective uh as well as a Rio perspective I think universally all the Press is like this is the right time for Rio you know they've been looking at it for a long time you know they're in Copper they're in aluminum you know they're saying like lithium is is part of like the EV transition but clearly with rencon you know back in the day what I wanted to say is interesting we have Tim Goldsmith here in rencon I looked at the press release um when they paid $825 million for you know a non-producing asset which they've now had to invest another $350 million in but in 2021 they basically had said that lithium was going to grow 25 to 35% um the rest of the decade right that was 20 21 they're now saying you know lithium is going to grow 10% through uh 2040 right so uh a significant like ratcheting down of the growth rate but with a longer time frame I'm thinking this is a bit of sandbagging right they didn't want to kind of gloat too much here um but they they did indicate that they're going to accelerate at um you know the growth plans they think they could add another 50,000 tons and they also made yakob stylesome indicated you know in some ways if the price is lower for longer it's better for them right I don't know if you read that you know through the transcript or listen to that so Darko why don't you start giving your initial View and uh and then we'll ask the others to participate uh look re of the big Miners and miners in general was the one that showed interest in lithium so not a surprise that them took action to take someone out it's either build or buy they had projects to build it was probably easier to buy you buy an integrated business Diversified assets actually very complimentary you know kind of region where they operate they're RA in all of those things perfect timing um and you're buying a team with a very long life asset base that you can expand multiple times over the next few decades so perfect stuff for a company like R Tina will it move the D for Rio um maybe you know maybe it becomes 5% or maybe 10% at the best of times as a contributor but you know what that's as good as aluminium is and they've been in aluminium for quite a long time um and what timee to do it then right now so from a ria perspective it's it's actually great transaction the question now is you know can they execute and you know if there is a question mark you have on a big company like Rio is it's a big company okay and they haven't really got a lot of experience building midscale projects which most of these things are so that'll be the $ 64 question is how how can they execute and how will they execute whether there will be sequential development or kind of a multiple developments at one time I suspect it'll be Market orientated I think they're smart enough not to kill the market so from that point of view I think perfect time um I know the market kind of some people liked it some didn't some thought it was expensive some thought maybe it's too cheapy from from an Arcadian point of view but I think from an Arcadian point of view is well you beamed you know you're ship in you know your sailing boat in the ocean and the wind's gone out of your sales how long do you wait for the market to improve before you can go back on a growth path and that could be one year it could be 2 years it could be four years is you know it's very hard to say but if you're rottin you're you're looking at decades not not 3 years and and that's really in the context that we need to look at I guess if you arcade him um well you know they were obviously seller so that's the other issues that you know you might want to buy something like Ria but what do you buy and what's available and what can you buy uh clearly album Mal is probably not available and to buy it would be a material acquisition where this is available and it's whilst it's a big number it's a small number in the context of Rio doesn't change its Financial metrics it didn't do anything uh so it's just got so much more freedom and it hasn't been penalized uh by the market as a result so but if you're narcum shareholder um and I am uh and have been for a long time I'm happy that the transactions taking place because the stock I think has been stuck and will be stuck for a period of time uh but I think if you look at it over over the last few years it is disappointing because I think value leaked from the oam liveen deal to Oram shareholders they they lost money on that really and then quite a surprised that they were actually sellers given the story that they've had to sell so I guess the sellers and from an aradian perspective you got to say you got to be happy because management is going to sell Anthony were you a shareholder in Arcadium um or did you have a view on this we were and I'd completely agree with with Darko and all those those comments um I'm a bit Limited in what I can say at the moment given there's a lot of background noise so you might need to keep running with someone else for a couple of minutes before you throw it a m night okay um anyone want to chime in here David you're the one analyst uh I think on the cell well maybe I'm wrong I don't know which of the other analysts may have covered Arcadium but uh you had Arcadium as your top pick um your Target price was $6 recently but it was $10 at the beginning of this year when um you know after the merger obviously a lot of analyst you know downgraded the lithium prices and that led to you know short-term you know downgrade to to Target prices but you know I was looking at the just the the pp and on the on on the merge company balance sheet of $9 billion right and they sold the company for 6.7 billion Kate McCutchen unfortunately of city um I invited here wanted her but wrote this note in July buy versus build you know had to fix a $7.7 billion replacement value um for Arcadium and that was just like on on the theoretical you know pure assets like not really affixing any additional value to the to the knowhow or the customers or um the fact that you really can't replicate there is no replacement for this kind of collection of assets so I mean what's your thought David I mean I thought this was extremely hurried you know there was no uh alternative bitter s you know I thought we were going to have five or six months of um you know back and forth like you know BHB Anglo or Glen cortech or some of the just a year ago everyone was fighting for assets in wa you know and here we had uh you know a hat tip to Hao you know on on X you know he they put out a a post you know showing a you know Texas hold them you know poker game you know the negotiations were like immediately full you know so so why did Paul capitulate you know in three days I mean that that I guess we'll find out over time in the background proxy I I think ultimately you know leave leaving things like replacement value out of the conversation you know Arcadium was very under capitalized for what they wanted to do and I think that that was something that was weighing on every executive at Arcadium irrespective of price is they had between you and I think it gets back to you know I think Darko mentioned like the the value leakage with Alam and and liveen you know which only Clos at the beginning of this year and obviously the Stock's been very disappointing since then and you find yourself in a place where you know perhaps theoretically you bid off more than you could Cheo in an environment like this right now um and you have you know I don't know three different three different projects in Argentina two different projects in Canada uh one in Australia that you're not capitalizing but but you know you certainly have to manage uh so I think it's just a case of of being under capitalized you look at your scoreboard of six different projects and you're like well I can't really maximize any of the value here so I can either you know kind of just wait along here with the tide and maybe be up 10 15% a year and and I also think internally Arcadium team has never had a very robust view of lithium macro um and and I think that plays into it well you know we we thought that Rio was compensating them for you know roughly $15,000 a ton lce lithium um and if they don't have to take any of the execution and capex risk on top of the fact that they also wanted to you know I think have to consolidate in the maset project from investment Quebec which would have been a pretty large ticket item so I I think was just a case of of ultimately just weighing your options and saying we can drisk investors right now and then otherwise you know macro situation that's extremely uncertain right now uh while we also know that if we're going to properly properly have to pursue projects like this we're going to have to go back to the equity markets perhaps at some point and I think that that that that reality probably weighed their hands more than anything else okay I mean he went out of his way to say at the investor day that he wouldn't need to raise uh Equity but I guess that's what that's what you say keep in mind he was going to raise $700 million of debt before the end of this year right so um and and I think he said that it was going to be something at 9% so there's expensive options out there I might just ch in there I was sitting there with with David in that in the in New York for that investor day I mean the takeaway that I I took was there's a lot of moving Parts there's no way that they have enough stable Financial capability to pull it off um they're clearly going to have to slow things down even more than they already had and either that or substantially shift how they were funding all of these projects so you know it was I've walked away to saying this thing is going to be in financial trouble unless someone comes and takes them over with a better balance sheet and that's almost how they dressed it up had that investor though as far as I was concerned I just walked away thinking this is either Rios or there'll be one allmighty capital raising at some point next year to keep this growth pathway as aggressive as they were keeping it and from a lithium point of view it's a great outcome for everyone because Rio I think as Darko said you know they're a value over volume player they've been singing that tune in Iron all for 15 years uh and they will there's no way they will deliver the sort of growth rates that that that Arcadium had outlined in sort of wave one into wave two it would be much slower than that the way real operates they'll do it as the market needs it not not as they can deliver it even though they're Financial capability is much stronger so you know I think it's a good deal for for Arcadium and it's an even better deal for the lithium industry so Hayden what do you make of uh you know yakob saying that they're going to accelerate by 50,000 tons lce I forget what time frame that that was in the shorter term Market signal well he's also got his own projects right that have been sitting in the background not doing much so does it give him a chance to push harder on ringcon haven't really done anything at all potentially um you know I think it very interesting that you know the comments around the lower the lithium price is the better it is for us is because they haven't finished acquiring all the assets they want to actually deliver the outcomes they're planning and that's interestingly enough it's in both in hard rock and bran so arguments about which is which I mean they are going to be pretty heavily involved in both and I mean you consider consider y or a hard rock mine in Serb if they could ever get that thing moving but uh they don't seem to be worried either way which which sort of part of the industry they're in uh whether it's BR or hard rock so yeah there might be some shorter term acceleration because obviously you know like ium was putting products on hold like the Phoenix expansion which is an absolute no-brainer as you know in in place of doing s of verer and they were sort of pushed into that based on the construction contracts that have been signed and they couldn't couldn't slow s down is basically what Paul said okay um I want Ernie to chime in here on a comment David you me mentioned that this deal under was underwritten $115,000 um and Arcadium didn't really have you know a super high uh you know long-term you know I guess view of the market uh but Paul was always saying that look you know it's highly volatile you know prices could be 30 $40,000 in the not to distant future so like for all of you guys who are saying you know if he had to have slowed down Arcadium growth uh for another year or so um that could have severely impacted um you know Supply in the market and therefore accelerated how high or how soon and how high the price could go you know one would think you're selling at the very bottom of the market I guess there was look Rio made an approach everyone knew they were out there everyone was speculating why didn't they buy you know livein before they merg with with Alim and everyone thought when they merg okay now need now it's sizable enough and I get it you know it's a much bigger company with assets all over the world maybe Paul from Philadelphia managing you know and traveling all over the world to these locations you know was a very large board lot large mix of assets but still um yeah yes it was a good premium but you know no alternative biders I mean we had speculated in our last podcast that PCO is active you know in in in both Argentina and uh you know and and Quebec um you know the Japanese uh you know Toyota susho is in the capital structure you know Mitsubishi and mitsui have been you know there you know Tesla you know loves Argentina probably a long shot but I know there weren't very many obvious bitters uh Rio was was the one but but why not um you know wait uh I guess that's a question to to see if there's alternative there but but but Ernie what do you think about you know if you can give us some Market color uh you know underwriting you know is $15,000 today you know the the something that if you're investing in lithium you're you know if you got 15 bucks today you'd be happy or you should be happy with a medium term time Horizon uh sure and and I think we've seen some uh other estimates that perhaps the implied price was closer to $20,000 per ton but either way I think it's it's all call it mid team or High Teens uh it's still much higher than where it is today and if you look at the long-term consens consensus it's still Circa $20,000 per ton so uh I think there is the view that uh we are going to likely see higher prices at some point in the future of course the key the key question mark is is when and when you when you put that against time value of money for arcum shareholders I agree with what uh the panel has has mentioned that it does give you a lot of optionality to to to take uh that money now uh but that said I do think the market is uh improving uh both from supply and demand I can get into that into why we think that or we can leave that for later on the panel but uh I no matter how you look at it I think prices whether it's the next two years five years or 10 years you should be looking at uh likely higher prices given what's still expected to be a pretty robust demand uh environment can I can I just add something there Howard yeah yeah so I think what Ernie said is is right and we talked a lot already um today about risk reward and how that relates to the price paid um you know in in my conversations with investors and Market participants recently I don't think there's much push back um from many or anywhere that that I've certainly encountered to suggest that lithium prices whether it's chemicals or spines need to be higher at some point you know we talk about incentive level pricing and how that relates to long-term prices we step back and think about how analysts and I'll put myself in this category as well actually analyze commodity markets so yes you know there's a fundamental um sort of module that you use to incentive level pricing to get long-term prices but realistically most analyst short-term prices are anchored to wherever the spot price is so you you go and look at the next few years of of where most analyst forecasts are and they they're not a huge amount north of of of where we're we're looking at now and somewhere between there and fundamental incentive level pricing there's a jump up but as Ernie's alluded to knowing when that is is extremely difficult to say and I think that when we're thinking about potential counter bids you know having some having the confidence um and the desire to to go and pay pay money when someone's already gone and thrown you know a significant price on the table is is is quite a commitment to make um you know in in a relatively uncertain environment and and certainly that bid from from Rio gives gives that certainty as as a lot of us have been saying yeah I thought alal could have been a great bidder um I don't think they would have had Anti-Trust concerns if their balance sheet wasn't so stretched right I think that we could have had a you know a global Champion you know out of America um I thought that would have been a good deal uh you know and there's also groups like Glen core and others but Rio is really smart they they've been looking at lithium for 17 18 years with Yar um and uh and they had the balance sheet and they were ready so from an m&a point of view I think they just did an excellent job um I want to bring Tim Goldsmith in for a second uh but but dark I was thinking that everyone talks about Rio was stupid on alcam you know and then riversdale you know but actually they played you know um turquoise Hill you know and the former Ivan hine's m&a process really well uh I thought right they didn't overpay for that and I remember you know Robert they got the best of Robert even you know initially they had a 49% stake and then they managed to kind of take it over um I don't remember all the details of that but more relevantly you know the question is like can they operate right so um the the the U tooy you know the Mongolia project I I I I think now is you know they're almost done with their investment cycle there but that has taken a much longer time uh than originally anticipated so um Rio doesn't always overpay um they haven't but they always they don't always um you know execute you know perfectly well and this is a Specialty Chemicals business still although they paid you know an iron or multiple or base metal multiple um but Tim you uh you know had the benefit of getting the best of Rio tindo I think uh in 2021 um so what was that Dynamic like with ringcon uh you know and how do you assess what happened here um Howard before I talk on that um I was just following up one of the points which Sam came out with I think the piece which is very misunderstood on lithium is the geopolitics of it all and the absolute strangle hold China as had this industry for 1520 years um and you mentioned earlier that earlier in my career I actually worked an awful lot with China as they looked to invest out of country and um frankly they are the best strategic long-term thinkers I've ever met but I also do think they get very lost in the short term at times and I think what's played out in lithium particularly since the IRA was released I I think my perception of what I understand of China is the Chinese for the senior Ira as a um plan to stop China and they aren't going to take that happily so they would have I I think that their best response to that was to flood the market with cheap lithium and keep the lithium prices very very low but where I think they suffer is the shortterm thinking that having been very successful that for a little piece of time they now need to be very careful that low lithium prices will stop any Western development and has done this last six to nine months so I think that there's um we should have seen prices go up Beyond before now because we need to incentivize the next explorers we can still see loads of projects which came out from the last few years when there was very high lithium prices and explorers could actively get money and developers could now that's all dead not going anywhere so when all of a sudden lii prices do start rebounding there'll be nothing to stop them going back to 880,000 or Beyond who knows who knows what the number will be but I do think we're stuck in this boom bus cycle um and I think Rio thinks through this stuff much better than than most I mean I think that what they did in ringcon was very um sensible for them we were very pleased as the sellers as well and I think what the D here is very logical as well Howard um and the The Logical very next step a senior player at what I think they would see as a low price not in the market okay I want to bring Trent in you wrote a note after the acquisition um basically saying that this this should underpin you know higher valuations for you know lithium if you could just articulate I don't know if you covered Arcadium but um if you could just talk about your note and what like because right now I see positives in the in the lithium market and lithium equities which are reflected in the scoreboard um is m&a uh is this China stimulus um that has come into the market although it's not exactly clear how directly that helps lithium uh but on the negative side you still have us election uncertainty um I was hoping Tesla's Robo taxi unveil was going to you know have some benefit but it turned into like a damp squib you know lithium prices are not um rallying you know too aggressively maybe there's a little bit of an uptick um so like are we going to see a sustained rally you know in in lithium equities or is this going to you know Peter out uh I think Trent and and others and Sam came on our podcast you know in April you know thinking we had bottomed um and it was it was a dead cat bounce you know before we we went lower so I guess what what are your thoughts um your current thoughts trend um I think uh yeah there be there's a premium Now added in for m&a across the sector so um and and the equity Market is a very broad CH Church of all of of experts and non-experts and um so what we might consider a non- Rio asset someone else will consider maybe Rio will participate in that so you start having a bit of a foot across the sector and it's not just um uh the Rio bid there's also pilled buying Latin a couple of weeks ago so that that protects some of the downside in the equities and then I think um like Tim said more importantly is the um buildout now potentially of a a Western World supply chain so if I think of um an EB producer where you're going to get your chemicals if you can't get from China you're going to be relying on capitalism relying on uh low commodity prices and that um uh Upstream just was never going to get built out now that you've got a capitalized well big uh Miner that um is has bought an asset that's pretty Broad has uh brine has hard rock has conversion capacity of hard rock has purification of brins into battery grade things now you have a um a potential supply chain to build your car manufacturing facility knowing that you've got a big brother who's going to be able to to um to feed you what you need over a medium to long-term Horizon so I think both those things one is uh it underwrites the certainty more of a us um EV cycle which everyone started to become disappointed in and the other one is just adding m& premiums into everything and also every time now there is a bid for a Lithium company uh the broad CH Church of equity um commentators is now always going to say is is Rio potential buy for that okay Anthony are you in a better place currently walking down in dark Al but speak quiet T night so you should be able to get me here okay um any thoughts you want to share just uh I do um Trent brought up pbra um and and L you know and here we have uh you know Rio Arcadium they they didn't both did not buy in western Australia right like pilbo wasn't bid for or like this time last year all the activity was you know Azor you know lion toown um you know you had minres and and and Hancock as well as well as foreign players like Alam Marl um and and and now Western Australia is not in the picture at the moment uh for for m&a uh and then there's some people say you know the whole bran versus Hard Rock debate you know um you know Brazil Quebec you know versus wa you know what are your thoughts on that um and and do you think Rio's done or might they make more Acquisitions oh I don't I don't think Rio's done but I think there's an obvious reason why we haven't seen any m&a or or much m&a in in wa and I think it's because people are a bit scared of going up against Gina's fir power to be honest without speaking to out of school I think that how she blocked the um line toown deals shows that there's Deep Pockets there and people just don't want to come up against that kind of Firepower and see their deals blocked um to the point around you know Rio and filber I think the one thing that connects them is just the strong balance right so you know the land resources and the the Arcadium of the world that don't have the Firepower themselves and sitting there with a stretch balance sheet vulnerable so you know to think who's going to be next I think you're just going to see who's got the weakest balance sheets to the biggest growth projects but who who are the people that are going to do the deals right and you've got to look at anyone who's got the Ty out to do it and I think that that list of candidates is getting shorter and shorter so Rio will bed down its acquisition I wouldn't would expect R to do another deal anytime soon but who I know but um I think you're still going to come back to the obvious candidates and I don't I would suspect there's going to be a few more asset deals from here rather than necessarily kind of large scale Arcadium type type deals in in in the short term I still think that there's some Japanese and Korean money on the sidelines are still looking to do deals I mean tosco's name keeps keeps coming up and I'd suspect mitsubish and some of the other Japanese players have Capital that that's looking to be allocated still I couldn't tell you which specific assets are the exra deal but I'd suspect that there's some deals in the pipeline over the next 6 to 12 months from those parties um but yeah the point that you made around jurisdiction I mean jurisdiction is a massive factor in all of these deals you know I mean Ria's obviously chosen Argentina versus Chile or wa and kilber is obviously chosen Brazil over over Quebec so it's become a mass factor in in these deals um I can't remember what the other question was to be honest there was a few there um well um that would the one big Insight I got from that is that maybe the speed with which Paul Graves wanted to get this deal done is is to thwart you know Gina right he didn't want that outcome yeah I would have and and and I don't have any direct insights into Gina's strategy from here but I'd suspect that she'd probably prefer to play in wa than going to somewhere like Argentina herself so I wouldn't NE necessarily thought that she was a a count of bit to Arcadian but you know I've been she's she is in she is in Vulcan um which is a a topic I want to kind of discuss here on the dle side and what's holding up you know that valuation that I mean and that valuation has been well supported and with Equity raise uh by her and others um um not that long ago um but you you mentioned Rio uh is Argentina but you're it's also Quebec right you know you said pilbo went to Brazil and not Quebec um I'm looking at this as Quebec and Brazil but not you know Australia um and you know I think there's you know Rio is very active in Quebec in titanium and iron or and importantly aluminum right you know so there's a lot of infrastructure there and knowledge and connectivity I think they're the ones to kind of realiz Quebec has had such a Negative headwind for years that um I'm very interested to see how Rio articulates their their plan and vision there any of you have any thoughts on on on that I mean you have you know cyana and pedmont now you know are producing um but you need Downstream uh to be built down there and uh and and Rio is well placed with starting with wuchi but you know if they replicate you know five aluminum smelters um this could finally realize the the North American hard rock this this is like Western Australia to China you know all within Quebec potentially you know if if Rio plays it that way Howard can I can I just make a observation about um you a lot of this discussion today is around um you know why weren't there any other biders you know who could be next you know where there going to be further m&a thematic in in the sector and I think if we put up the fact that a lot of people have talked about the fact that that Arcadium was fairly unique um and you know it was it was a clear um Target that makes sense for a Rio Tinto if indeed that's the case and indeed we we don't see you know forthcoming other biders with Deep Pockets in the near term then surely I would think that the next best option which probably some smart m&a Bankers are already pitching on is if we look how Arcadium was built was built through through mergers you know what I would think that you know smaller Independents should be talking to each other and trying to to pull their resources and perhaps that means prioritizing one project over another so you got to get over management Egos and so forth but I would think that if you know there's no one out there bidding in terms of Acquisitions then you know there should start to be a a thematic of uh of smaller developers in the space is starting to pull together and perhaps trying to build the next Arcadium I agree with that and I I think um Arcadian Paul Graves said um you need to be a multi-asset company and I think pilra kind of took that on board by going into Latin so and you're right you know Galaxy and oraco you know and then with live and so um I think Anthony has some views on on one merger in particular that that um that that could happen if you want to talk about that Anthony and and maybe um Ernie I'm mindful of Ernie's time uh he probably can't talk so specifically about you know individual companies but uh I do want to get you know more of Ernie's thoughts before he has to um you know come off but but Anthony like like on the on the scoreboard you know we're losing a a very significant Pure Play you know a liquid you know it it's it's frustrating there's not that many ways to play lithium I mean but you do have Sigma as a producer you do have uh pilra as a producer you now have lion toown you have cyana pedmont you know but I remember when lithium Americas merged with um Western lithium right you know I don't know seven or eight years ago you had two people said congratulations now you have two unfunded projects right you know and then they separated so um I think it's it's not necessarily so great for like an unfunded company to to to merge with another unfunded company but you do have companies now that are just started production I mean Sigma could be a consolidator although Anna said she um was more interested in moving Downstream to sulfate than consolidating so where where could we see you know int uh junior or or you know recent producer you know kind of m&a happen Anthony why don't you start you froze there Anthony all right um hopefully Anthony will will come back anyone else want to answer that question as a start but you probably Howard one thing which is just saying there which I just want to sort of chime in on um if we lose Arcadium as a listed vehicle which you'd have to suspect is likely to happen here um you then have probably the global leaders in dle being what will be the riotinto team and Exon Mobile team neither of whom are going to be saying an awful lot publicly about what they're doing so I think that this may have ramification um in I I know a lot of the world doesn't want to believe in D whereas um I've been sort of working with it for six seven years now and I totally and utterly believe it but it's going to be hard for the proof to the rest of the world to be shown um other than how Exxon and Rio will selectively disclose things which will be IMM material in their balance sheet for for many years to come um and I do think dle is going to be a huge game changer for the cost curve of lithium in the next 10 15 years which which is obviously going to be very important for pricing in the longer term um do you agree with that Ernie I think it's going to be very asset and Technology dependent I think one of the key potential new entrance to the d space is aramet with their centenarios project in Argentina and uh they they've commented that they want to start production in November of this year and if you look at their public guidance for cost it's Circa $5,000 per ton LC which is actually very similar to some of the other kind of Legacy conventional Pond uh type system so uh I think it it's it's yet to be seen whether they will have a dramatic uh Opex Advantage versus some of the conventional uh system especially if if that is the probably major new addition in the west is having very similar uh type cost to Conventional ponds uh so that that's yet to be seen uh and then even on the capex side I think it was also very similar capex intensity to Conventional pwn so sure I think there will be some benefits uh of course was just uh purification and concentration of the brine uh but at the same time you do have a lot of energy requirements for dle So I think it's uh it'll depend on the asset and the technology uh where it can potentially have uh big impacts but uh I think so far what we've seen is that it hasn't had as as big an impact on cost uh and and cback intent then perhaps the models have shown it okay I this point on dle is is is one I do want to dig into because elad which Arcadium invested in and SED SLB what used to be called schlumberg and uh this was highlighted by yakob stome um and uh someone was commenting that uh I don't know if that's right and someone on Twitter mentioned that Arcadium um you know locked up ilad you know so rencon couldn't use it on Rio so they bought that I don't know if that's true um I think that elad would have licensed it to rencon as well I don't think they had an exclusive Arcadium but bottom line is this this this elad technology there's 80 dle Technologies out there as far as I understand Rodney and I have had some experience with elad and energy source minerals in particular uh we represent presed Compass minerals uh in the Great Salt Lake um and they had a very robust you know two to four year um you know selection process for technology service provider and they had other you know prominent you know American Chinese uh Russian uh technology uh providers that um they um they did not select you know after we had introduced ilad so we had like an upfront you know view on um this technology being uh among the winners here and uh you know and Paul Graves had talked up that technology um and then energy source minerals David um you and I spoke I I I thought like if you if you're looking at North America and you look at you know Hard Rock in Quebec and and and Ontario and or in Carolina and if you look at sediment if you look at the salt and sea if you look at um you know Arkansas Smackover if you were like look to develop North America's assets which would you where would you go you know and pick in fund right and I would presumably think that you know the lowest technical risk the most proven would would kind of be hard rock but David you had a like a slightly different view about you know the salt and sea not to put you on the spot there I think it's it's it's about I think the comment was more squarely around incentive right and and you look at the um you know the ocidental deal with Brook Shar halfway and dealing with uh a fluent brine coming out of uh coming out of power plants there right so so I think it's a matter of like taking advantage of resource and infrastructure that's in place and in otherwise extremely large resource so the size of the prize is very large so you know as a playground for you know some of the the separation Majors you know that are endeavoring to get involved in dle um you know there there's there's like a huge risk reward opportunity there for something that um you know again isn't isn't going to show up unfortunately in their results for quite some time you know it's the same with Exxon um you know trying to get to 100,000 tons a year by the end of the decade in in the Smackover right so it's these These are effectively like free options for them and David you cover oil companies as as well um and uh there is a question will Exxon buy album all right that's like if they're really serious about uh getting into the business but I saw Patrick hoar speak at the fast markets conference and he kind of said definitively in lithium we will not do Hard Rock right so that that that might uh rule out the uh the album All um idea uh anney uh it's been 50 minutes and I you haven't said a thing or I haven't invited you to say anything so forgive me for for that um why don't you you have some questions here why don't you direct them first at Ernie because he needs to leave in nine minutes and then um we'll carry on and dig deeper into some of these other questions sure it's just a normal podcast for us Howard no change um so Ernie uh let me just sorry uh got to come up with uh pull up the questions here but um so you know we've got quite a lot going on Ernie and you look at the at the differential in conversion capex for conversion cost globally and we have an election coming up in the US and some questions around that if the IRA Falls over if Trump decides to pull it or materially change it where does that leave ex China chemical conversion in North America sure so yeah I guess uh big hypothetical there but one thing on the IRA we are seeing a lot of the benefits go towards a lot of Republican leaning States uh so I believe Georgia has been the biggest beneficiary of a lot of the investment and then you also have uh Panasonic building their plant in Kansas you have the Corpus Christie facility from Texas from Texas and uh with Tesla so uh it's it's to be determined whether the IRA does get uh impacted or severely curtailed even in a republican Administration given the benefits are so tied to uh Republican uh leaning States uh and at the same time you have seen some of the rhetoric uh become more focused on whether uh a foreign uh automaker or battery maker uh the difference would be whether they actually promote domestic capacity versus uh importing uh different uh vehicles or batteries so that could be an important distinction where so long as it's made in America then there's uh potentially uh easier paths to production versus just outright Banning of uh any technology or any form of uh joint venture so I think it's still to be to be seen I think you are seeing also um parts of the Republican Administration opening up to EV especially with uh Elon Musk being kind of a an advisor to uh part of the Republican uh Administration so I I think it's uh you're seeing a things improve where before there was maybe very negative buys towards EVS in the Republican side whereas now it's more neutral uh and it start and the sentiment has shifted uh materially and even in the absence of kind of the political realm you are seeing uh oems continue to invest uh and you are seeing uh EV starting to sell in a much better way that they were at the beginning of the year uh and EV sales were up uh 27% in August in the US it's the first month we've seen I think all year that's up more than 20% that's her pure battery electric so you are seeing continued investment from the likes of uh different automakers and what comes to mind given they had their investor day last week is is GM uh they're guing to $30 per kilow hour lower cost next year and that they'll be uh much better profitability for EVS in 2025 so even putting politics aside you are seeing the performance and the EVS that are actually coming out from the Western oems uh improved dramatically going into 2025 that uh even in the absence of subsidies or removal of subsidies it'll be much more competitive going forward in 25 and 26 okay and maybe uh Hayden you can take this first one on I've SE various commentary and and and basically a a back solve to what's implied as a SP price across various valuations it looks to be somewhere between 1,00 and 1,500 I I guess the question now is you know is that's ahead of where we are in the spot market and I know fast Mark are going to launch a Futures Market soon how do you feel that kind of ties in with um with what's implied in in the forward Curves in the future and and relative to your long-term pricing yeah I think it's um I mean equities are always going to trade either side of the spot price when they're at you know either depressed or record levels I mean none of these Equity SP priced in 880,000 hydroxide forever either so you know you're always going to you're going to get that both ways but I think it's interesting that you're seeing fast markets and these sort of organizations talk about this stuff where we're seeing companies like lwn publicly report spot sales over 800 yet some of the indexes are still printing below 800 so that's an interesting uh D Dynamic that's emerged in the market in the very short order I'm not sure why that is but um you certainly hearing of other spot sales uh in the in the market that have all got eights in front of them so the price has already recovered a little bit um you the expect the view obviously is that if you run $800 or 750 a ton through every model that you have most projects don't make any money so you know you're not going to have these things continue to produce at these levels or go you're you're in well into the cost curve you will get a supply response and the price will recover which is why the equities are partially factoring that in already the question then becomes is for how long did it occur for what sort of damage did it do to balance sheets in the industry and and what position will will the existing producers be in to bring production back online and when will they be willing to do it um that is always that always takes longer than than you anticipate so you know the market is always going to price in better better equ or better commodity pricing than where spot is at a depressed level the same goes for the in all Market when it was $40 $45 a ton I me none of none of the equities are pricing anything like that forever so you know I think you'll see continued recovery and pricing the question will be is when when is the capital going to come back into the industry to really aggressively build out new Supply um particularly from the existing producers I think less so from from new developers they all seem to be effectively on the bench waiting for a much tighter lithium market and potentially you know either a demand shock to the upside on ESS or something or or we're going to see um you know a slower build out of projects over time unless we see some significant supply side issues across the board from somewhere whether that's out of Africa or logistical issues out of Argentina um remains to be seen but um in the absence of that I think it'll be a reasonable recovery but it probably there'll be a point in two probably two two years time I think where where there will be a bit of a demand shock to the upside and it'll take a while for Supply to catch up again Ernie before you I know you need to leave but I think among the the team here you may have the most direct experience in Brazil so I I want to go around the horn here around the world um you know Brian Hard Rock you know D you know sediment um and uh so just in in Brazil obviously pill Brook came in um for Latin uh Sigma you're heavily invested in you know from a royalty point of view but you you also have uh lithium ionic you know and Atlas um just as a jurisdiction you know as a SP mean there's this debate you know like where how's you know what are your thoughts on Brazil and and maybe any other final thoughts before you have to um head off sure so we're we're big Believers in Brazil so we got correct we have a royal y with Sigma lithium which we invested in 2018 we also have a royalty with uh Atlas lithium on their just nevas project in Brazil and then also a private company called m4e uh they're the they have 990,000 hectares across munai in the northeast of Brazil I think they're the largest lithium land owner um in the country uh but that is a private company and what's attracted us to Brazil uh are many things but key things would be they all seem to be generally highgrade uh cost of production are quite low they seem to be around $500 to $550 per ton uh CIF and that's across the many different producers that you look at uh right now there there's only really three but um AMG publicly discloses their cost and that they're also around that 550 or or below uh ton CIF very similar to Sigma so they are a very lowcost producer in the Hard Rock space uh also the speed to Market is I would say is probably unrivaled in in the western world you can you can get projects permitted uh within 12 to to 18 months uh drilling costs are $200 a ton sorry $20 per meter you can drill year round uh the lucky thing for a lot of these hard rock or bodies in Brazil also is that they're they're far away from any uh sort of native title or uh far away from the Amazon so it's very easy to get things done and you add on top of it Hydro power it's 95% plus Hydro power even in that where uh Sigma and Atlas are there's there's a big solar facility already put in place and it's expanding so uh there there there's a lot to to like obviously it's a new uh jurisdiction only three players now but we wouldn't be surprised in the next three years that doubles to six and then probably by the end of the decade you're talking about 10 to 15 different producers and uh we we almost think of it as what wa was uh five to seven years ago when you were just discovering these new or bodies now it's it's it's starting to be uh discovered uh developed and um and produced in in in short order thanks for that um we uh interviewed Sigma recently we also did um you know lithium ionic and I'm just looking at the scoreboard um and the rally that you've had in some stocks there's been a a big rally in a number of wa names but uh you know on a relative value basis the atlas and the um the lithium ionic um didn't react you know so much to you you know the pbra Latin and and I think uh um yeah in Australia uh Brazil is not so well known uh even though Latin resources is perth-based company Chris scale you know is reasonably well known but I think pbra is definitely raising the profile in the Aussie Market um and uh you know for that and you mentioned AMG that's Ed there's so many you know narratives within you know lithium AMG just you know for for all the talk about a North American you know Downstream supply chain you actually have that developing in Europe you know AMG just christened their hydroxide plant there you have you know ioner not ioner sorry sabna um and and caliber uh you know in in Finland um you know an AMG invested in you know in in in in Savannah um I'm just weaving things I totally forgot about the uh um you the AIM being you know good in Brazil uh Anthony you're now in your office uh and we got cut off when I was asking you that question before question that's that's what it s l Darko I think I think it was Darko had talked about you know intra Junior kind of mergers you know like Galaxy you know and orac Cobra and then um you know then live and now Rio uh where might we see that um otherwise you know across the you know the lithium Juniors I think you're hoping I talk about Sona and pedmont a but um I will for your sake um that's probably the most obvious kind of merge of consolidation that needs to happen I think that it should have happened about a month or two ago when s was trading at a 40% premium to Pont I believe that the merger is more beneficial to S because of the life and mind contract that Pont has across n so I believe that that's one that definitely has to happen but with peont now probably trading at at 20% premium I think it is on a mark basis been moving around a bit it's just not that incentive for Pont to merge with son I think it should have happened the other way around when s had that 30 to 40% premium I think it starts to get tougher with some of the wa Hard Rock producers given that mins is basically taken a almost a blocking stake in probably three or four of them that that makes it a little bit harder um so there is some negotiation that has to happen if you do want to acquire any of those wa based players but I think they're probably still going to end up in some kind of consolidation play where there's almost a centralized processing Hub within wa and they all kind of feed the rock into it rather than them being almost Standalone projects so in some ways men's almost becomes almost like the OPEC of the Hard Rock game um for one of a better terminology in that they can dictate which of those projects kind of come on stream when they need to and and at what pace um so in the smaller end of town I think I think M holds a lot of cars in wa as well as Gina obviously she's got the relationship with Chris so you know there there's a fair bit of I guess negotiating to occur there to determine how those cards play out I think the PED monsa one is is extremely obvious still and then there's a whole bunch of other guys in Quebec that are there to probably get taken out at some point or or another um I think Patriot is is a very obvious takeover candidate at some point I think it looks like a cracker of a project obviously it's large it's got good grade uh you know the one one issue is obviously the regulatory environment which they'll tell you is not an issue um it's going to take a while for that project to get developed and go through that regulatory process um I still think that it's worth the effort I think it can be as big as pil ganguru at some point in Into the Future so I think it's worth investing the time to do so but um there there's no rush obviously in the short term for someone to take that on except if there's the belief that there's going to be bidding WF for that ass it okay um Anthony your connection was not awesome there but just to summarize if any of you didn't hear that well so you think sayana pedmont is an obvious merger candidate um but it kind of depends on the exchange ratio between the two parties um and then and then in wa you think mineral resources and and Hancock you know complicate things but you know there should be a regional Hub in wa for some of the the assets so that'll play out you know in time and then you said Patriot you know you think uh is is a good Target as well in in Quebec um Rodney and I have been having like I visited the on a site we just if any of you haven't seen you know the site visit video I would encourage you to look at that um because it it really is going a long way apart from Rio buying arcade to uh showing that you can produce uh concentrate you know in a consistent manner um from that ore body and uh obviously there's a freight differential disadvantage by selling it to to China but otherwise there's great rocks you know in in Quebec but uh we talked to a lot of Industry insiders and oems and the like you know who have looked at a lot of the projects within um within Quebec and one you know group that we spoke to in particular like highlighted actually moan you know within Siana as a stellar underappreciated asset you know and also Winsome um from a capex point of view and a a fast and Ed to Market point of view so we we love Ken brinon and the Patriot deposit is great you know Q2 looks to be following in a similar path but there is like the timeline to production you know wuchi is in construction Galaxy is permitted uh moon is at DFS um and and winom has this you know through the Renard you know very Innovative thing and then you got to look at valuations of the companies as well you're talking you know some of pedmont you know you look at winom Patriot you know like you know Q2 is is climbed up to be higher than you know winson's valuation so like you're in the um where where are we in the cycle right like the raid in resources just raise $10 million okay and they have over100 million Market this is the Andover uh maybe Redux um you know so the market very quickly even though lithium prices haven't risen you know this is not this is not March 2020 2020 right or even you know September 2020 which was battery day and you know you had companies that that couldn't raise any money with like you know less than 10 million market caps you still have availability of money you know certainly for exploration and the like so getting back to an earlier question I had we had a false start in April uh we thought um there was going to be an uptick and and it turned out to be not a good time to be buying the equity so are are we going to is this going to be a Fool's errand if we're like chasing things uh you know that have risen you know right now um or you know so what what's Your Gut you know Anthony Darko uh on the buy side here um would you be accumulating shares and and and and what kind of if you don't want if you can name specific names great but if not like just what's your favorite geographies or you know types you know Brian versus Hard Rock versus dle versus clay uh look probably uh I think we're at that point where if you if you've been in the space and you're out of it um that's all well and good but the risk reward probably over the next 6 12 months is probably biased on the upside simply because of you know fundamentals demand's pretty still pretty good you know I was in China in June and you know those people are rocking and the auto makers like byd you know this is the time of year when they start to increase sales so there's a seasonality element in the fourth quarter that's driving demand certainly EV sales and I think that'll flow onto lithium uh look I think when you look at the space I mean depends on the metrics you use or whatever it is but arguably these things are way off their highs they to me look cheap simply because they're trading on high multiples um and you go to the producers first because why take the risk on you know some Junior company that's subject to development and all the other risks that are involved and let's let's face it at this Market a Greenfield's development will just not be financed today I would think you know if you're out there looking for 300 $400 Million To Build A Hard Rock Mine anywhere you won't get the money nor will you do it for bran operation so I think you just look at an album M you know that would be had serious leverage if if you know commodity prices rise whether that's brine or production or hard rock it doesn't really matter uh so pilra uh Alba Mal uh you can argue Sigma looks pretty cheap at these levels having said that none of them are generating any free cash flow as we stand and the market likes free cash flow so you know it needs to transition to that before you start getting the big money coming in so I think if you're a bit of an early player I think it's time to start sort of adding a few names if you haven't already uh do you go H hog and buy your ultimate position probably not because I think what we've seen is positive news is starting to flow through from an EV point of view uh we yet to really see U information or follow through on inventories in that supply chain um we don't know what they are there's a lot of debate what it could be but what you want to see is that falling the irony of all of this is even in this pullback I've yet to hear a company tell me that a off taker has deferred a shipment so even in all of this negativity uh people are producing and selling their product and the customers are taking their product and I assume they're processing some of it or some of it's going into inventory so actually maybe as as Hayden said you know when you look at test the market maybe the real Market is better than the indices that are you know kind of suggesting it's pretty bad uh maybe it's a $50 difference or $100 difference but it's not what we think is from from a pricing Dynamic that we see so I think there's enough value in the big guys uh in the midcaps um the question then is what do you do with the development plays like uh um so Patriots it is a tier one asset we all know that uh we know what happens to T1 asset someone owns it or someone builds it it may be Patriot maybe someone else I'm not sure who that will be um you know obviously winom is a pretty good story uh it looks cheap um you know people love Wildcat we owned wcat in the past but you know still got a couple 100 million Market cut and you have to get a resource and all the rest of it doesn't doesn't mean it won't get bought out and everything but why take that risk when you can buy something that's got heft and you can weigh your position um accordingly by buying a producer bigger scale etc etc so I I I think I'm not negative on the space I think over the next 6 to 12 months I think we're starting to see a few things improve but to really go harder you want to start to see that price signal move to the next level and we yet to really see that so maybe this is the second false Dawn that we that we've kind of experienced in the last six months uh and maybe it's the third one that kind of moves us forward but fundamentally and getting back to just the I wanted to add you know why Arcadium and not someone else uh just remember Rio is buying a business not an asset right everything else is an asset so if you look at say the geopolitics of it the Chinese cannot buy anything in Canada and cannot buy anything in Australia um so who's going to buy those things um limited pill uh we talk about Traders we talk about um Mitsubishi mitsui and all the rest of it well they're not operators and uh they want the product but they don't know how to run the business um and it's an asset it's one mine so what do you do with that in a in a volatile Market I think that what we're seeing is I think what we what we'll see is what's happening in China if you look at gang Fang or any of the Chinese refiners they're backward integrating right they're backward integrating either with it's liite or they're buying some other mine somewhere else like in Africa and building a mine in Africa the risk for a wa based Hard Rock Miner is uh they could be left swinging in the in the breeze when we see the next downturn because who will they sell to and at what price and you can see that actually with mines actually mines I think you know their strategy was kind of no we don't want to do anything Downstream we don't want to be in China we just want to sell um High well high cost uh Spud you mean basically uh that's not a good business model not sustainable over the long term so yeah again I think fundamentally I think the sector is still good I think you can take the box that growth continues um my only big picture concern is that it's actually Europe and the North America is actually um spoiling the party um Europe obvious for obvious reasons the economies are poor so you'd have to say that roll out of the supply chain probably gets pushed out and arguably the same thing happens in North America simply because the EV uptake is much much slower than people have anticipated now that might change going forward but right now that's that's a concern um but again I I I think it's probably the right time to start picking and pick the producers because they puty cheit um Anthony I'd like your opinion on that but I'm going to add another question related to it so the prices Equity prices have moved in part because of m&a and in part because of the China stimulus and we've all been waiting like you know the equities like and pbra is uh short interest has gone down you know from 21 to 19% so but minres has been going up um Rodney always says like the equity Market someone always knows like six months ahead of time like the equity you know before the the actual price moves the equity markets are forward-looking so there's noise in the equities now are are are the equities reflecting higher lithium prices to to come and not just this like move to 800 right like you know our price is heading to 11 12 you know, 1500 from here in in your judgment or are like the concerns about Europe and the United States um you know being less good uh gonna put a bit of a a cap on this and you know can China lipolite we haven't even talked about China lepidolite and African Supply can these things kind of like come back on pretty quickly you know to dampen you know any price rally yeah I I continue to believe in 13 to 1500 bucks a ton long-term spge M I couldn't tell you if it's going to happen in the next three months or the next three years I continue to believe that eventually we get there I mean I was probably the St of the optimistic that we might be able to get there by the end of this year your connection is not so good Salon like coming on stream Kathleen Val's coming on stream at the same time time Mount holl's continuing to ramp so there is a lot of spaming in the Market at the same time so to sit here and say we're definitely going to get to 1,500 bucks with all that Supply coming on stream it's a hard ask the other thing I would say is despite all the optimism within the equities and you know within you know China and the consumption story driven by the stimulus the gxs have actually gone backwards so I look at this every day and I think a week or two ago we were at 85,000 remian today we're at 74,000 remian and those are Futures looking um in indices right and so 3 months out that's actually dropped by 10% so to sit here and say oh we're definitely going to go to 12,300 bucks in the next six months it's probably a bold statement to make but I agree with Darko that it feels like you know if we're not at the bottom where you know along the bottom and whether it lasts 3 to 6 months I think you can you can comfortably add knowing if you've done the work with some of these companies with you know pricing in a spudman price of 900 or th000 bucks a ton that hopefully will get there in the future and you know overpaying for something if you if you to believe like we do 13 to, 1500 bucks a ton to SP but do I think that sping price is going to is going to lead you there probably not and that's probably the one thing that's really going to drive sentiment is if if you do see that spot price get above a th000 bucks a ton then I I'd suspect the equities run even even higher than you know the look through of 13 or500 because I think they'll overshoot to the upside again because people think that we're on another sustained recovery beyond that okay um Trent I wanted to ask you and also Sam there are some stocks there that are like completely ignored uh but they could easily double on very low volume um I think like Savannah was one and and and some of these like totally forgotten but like AMG just like showed up in there one stock you cover uh client of ours you know full disclosure by the way I forgot to mention you know not investment do your own research for uh everything here uh Benji will probably have to uh record something at the end of this uh just to put that at the front end because I forgot about that but something like a European medals Holdings um you know in Europe or you know Sam I guess ioner has moved a bit but there was a news Rodney you know sent me that uh aan looks to have won their lawsuit you know in on a nickel deal um and but we don't know if Saban is going to have to pay a significant amount until kind of like you know next year um but uh you know it looks like ioner is going to get permitted and then Saban is going to be on the hook for like 470 million or something like that um if they fall away I'm wondering you know does Rio you know come come into that but these are names that you know not everybody EMH ioner are not talked about nearly as much as some of these other names um and for those of you kind of watching this uh you know if your Wildcat you know moved an enormous amount or you missed Q2 or some of these other names like like what are stocks that haven't moved right that maybe you should you could look at but obviously everything's speculative but um what what do you what do you think are there any off the Beaten Track I guess you guys are sales tight ialy you can't speak about things that you don't cover um but I guess Sam and and um and Trent and Hayden I'm not sure who's in your coverage Universe um if you could talk about some you know some Darkhorse you know names that are less well talked about do you want me to go Trent Trent you want to go why Sam Trent and then Hayden okay um all right uh yeah look as you say there's a few there's a few little names around there and and some uh you know look even over the last week I mean Atlantic lithium right both LSC listed and NX listed it's up 50% um you know and I think that's a good example of a stock that's they got a permit large so there they got they got a yeah they got a m operating permit but you know that that that move of 50% over the past week was Progressive every day um you know wasn't just a big move on the back of that there's obviously a few things that play and I think that that's a good example of a stock that has largely done everything right as a you know Junior project developer over the past two years but they've done it against the backdrop of a lithium Market dropping out of the floor um and you know obviously when sentiment turns then they're well placed to to obviously benefit from that but but I think you know the other one of the other sort of left field things that that i' I'd mention in terms of um I guess perhaps some um out of the-box thinking on on impacts of the Rio Arcadium deal is you know one of the things that I found um you know up until very recently I was based in Europe um is that getting the attention of the European Equity investor um on lithium was very very difficult uh because it was an easy thing for many of the investors in that part of the world to ignore because they clearly weren't the large players or you know index relevance um for lithium but but clearly with you know one of the largest players in the sector now having a significant exposure in the space I think that you know that one of the upshots of that is potentially seeing broadly the knowledge base of the European investment Community come up the curve with regards to lithium and perhaps that may provide some opportunity for some of those European listed Juniors who perhaps have struggled for a little bit of attention from domestic European investors um you and now through necessity um you know they may actually get a little bit of attention um where perhaps they didn't before so well that's no specific names um you know perhaps that's a a thematic that might um might play out in time it's very interesting I I the appreciate that color your Rio is obviously a very well-known name you know in Europe uh with their London listing or their dual listing so what do you think Trent you know is are people going to just like back up the truck now for European Metals Holdings I don't think so I think like like did the money starts at the uh starts at the lower risk ones and then it trickles down eventually to the the very high risk ones EMH is at the end of the high very high risk ones but does obviously have a a proper asset in a in a um in a strategic part of the world obviously Europe has been extremely disappointing with their um with their integration I guess and and raw material acquiring so and that's why EMH is so so cheap because it's it's this perception is it'll never get built because no one will ever want the product um but but that'll that'll probably change and um it can change reasonably quickly uh so yep that that's definitely a lagger that has potentially a lot of upside and and um and I guess maybe that'll change around potentially m& that one is a strategic asset that maybe someone you know it's strategic asset with a lot of lithium it's high cost lithium but it's in a in a region with with uh that's not in doubt at all um the other one which is you know it's a bit different but it's in Europe as well as talo they've got the exploration ground for lithium in Sweden so that's that's something to think about and I like um I still like I'm sorry did you say did you say TGA TGA it's a it's a graphite T the one that sqm sqm invested in that okay so that's one off the radar as a lithium stock and it's and um you know it's graphite project is the main asset but that's something to think about if you're looking for lags that haven't moved at all on on lithium and then I I still like winom I mean it hasn't run from its bottom but like you pointed out relative valuation to a lot of other um uh watch main projects that are Advanced on a short time table like um like winom could be I think that that still looks very good as well all right great Hayden um how just before Hayden does but be remiss of me not to mention panta minerals if you wouldn't mind for two seconds I should say I'm direct I was gonna I was I was gonna I was gonna get there uh Tim um I'll leave you with it and come back to you ready I I was I was goingon to Circle back to to David and um uh you know I want to talk about lithium Argentina we haven't talked about like you know the way to play Argentina was Arcadium so there aren't you know a lot of people saying oh like the future of Brian look fantastic uh but there aren't that many ways to play Brian right um but anyway Hayden any off the beaten path ideas and then David and because David also knows a bit of standard lithium and then we could talk about Smackover and and panta yeah sure I think um I a little bit darkos Camp to be honest I think a lot of the West Australian exporation companies have gone back into sort of caretaker mode really Global lithium Delta sort of reassessing what it's doing with its with its gold asset rather than you know aggressively drilling out on lithium so you're seeing some of these smaller things just of pull right back from what they're actually doing it's only really wildcat in in wa that's still having a crack and still advancing their their asset um but you know as we discussed before I mean you're talking about the big stocks factoring in a, bucks or 1,200 or whatever it is in spot pricing but for some of these smaller things that could could have huge share price gains if prices went to 15,600 you know $2,000 a ton on SPO for some of them that's probably the price they need to just sort of rethink the the development potential of the projects then while we're waiting for that to possibly happen you're going to get pretty significant returns in iGo and and pilra and lown and these sorts of things and lown probably the biggest leverage play to all of that because if you can get a price recovery whilst they're in ramp up mode and you know needing cash flow to develop the underground to swing from open pit to underground it could be a material shift for them um so you know maybe not on the ultimate small cap end but the the left field one for me would be line town if we're thinking prices are going to move higher and sentiment is going to move higher that's the one that's going to be the key benefactor because they're producing today and for every dollar Improvement you see in sperman prices they will start to benefit because they're putting you know they've done two shipments already and St to sel around it's a it's a good point Hayden but whenever I think about that logic my mind goes to kind of pedmont and canana right like so if you believe prices are are going to you know take up you know um and then you're looking at something that's in either company it's about a 200 million market cap instead of like a still a billion market cap so that's um David you cover pedmont and also lithium Americas um you know and Anthony your your connection is not awesome Anthony so um forgive me on on that but David let's talk about I guess Argent ways to play Argentina you know thoughts on pedmont and um you covered the oil and gas companies I think you had some um view like Exxon came into the smack over through this acquisition of like galvanic you know which was rumored to be like a $100 million we were hearing you know that's maybe was under shooting you know the number there's a lot of secretive and stand of lithium stock has been soaring as as pedmont just in the past like short while so not with with no news you know equinor kind of came in so if you could talk about Argentina and then you know pedmont and and uh the uh I guess the Smackover plays yeah sure um yeah obviously it's quite difficult to play Argentina um and then you have lithium Argentina's um you know which suggest its namesake that there's a presence there I think the complication right is that um you know we we like lithium Argentinas it's an inexpensive stock you know Arcadium was obviously our top pick so we're not going to mourn for our top idea going away um but but I think it is it is quite challenging sometimes to replace like a second best um but but look like with lithium Argentinos you know it's a matter of like playing these Cycles correctly and if you think that there is going to be a price correction the next 6 12 months you already have kachari olos that's effectively at name plate and getting the battery grade next year right so um they're going to have a large project development update I believe you know that's going to Encompass things like posos Grande and Pelos with gang Fang excuse me by the end of this year um and and I think it'll be an interesting informative Catalyst for investors because I think that there's a very attractive financing option for them uh alternatively you know at the same time uh when you think about takeout can this gang Fang's presence obviously complicates things for for most uh most buyers there right so I think I wouldn't necessarily view them as as one where Rio would consolidate something like that longer term but I think as a going concern it's still quite interesting and then you obviously have the event path which no one really has Edge on but there is considerable upside in lithium americaas excuse me with the ther pass project uh targeted to have this committed financing from the loans program office by the end of the year which I know for most outside observers probably feels like there's contingency around the election but you know I I don't I don't think that that's the case necessarily and that might sound silly but you know this is they're they're not a political organization they've been in process for quite some time um and while obviously like a change in administration between Democrat versus Republican might change how the loans program office targets projects going forward it doesn't necessarily invalidate uh what's happening with with lithium America so I think certainly an interesting one um and then yeah I mean like outside of that there is there isn't much to do on the brine side for certainly like you know uh us listed companies um and then you know you have pedmont which you know was up almost 100% in the last week or so it seemed like it was going up 20% every day I think that it's it's clearly a lot of short covering that's been going on um you know there also seem to be some crossb um excuse me short covering because they're dual listed on the ISX as well so I think you kind of saw some of the sentiment that was lifting cyana and you know now pedmont finds himself in the place where they're they're really you know it seems like trying to take like a very long dated wait and see approach and find Project Partners around financing um because there there's a number of opportunities out there including Iya and obviously Carolina and Tennessee that I think are just getting pushed out further and further and in the meantime obviously you can wait and see if if the spasman prices improve and those cash flows from sayana finally start to uh to look attractive here you don't cover standard lithium I don't no okay um my view of those is just like three names um there I think lithium Americas will get funded I asked a couple questions there were some events here during climate week and there was a a senior GM uh representative and then I spoke to another GM person and they're very committed to that project which is interesting actually it's a very it's a very important distinction because the loans program office wants to align with companies that have sponsorship from large American oems so the the the fact that and I agree with you that the financing will come and GMS see at the table there is is is a huge differenti Year yes but what's interesting if you kind of just like look back and say riotinto is paying 67 billion for $75,000 75,000 tons of existing lowcost production and the price tag on lithium Americas is $3 billion you know to to build 40,000 tons right um You Know You're an equity investor in there like um GM is going to own like 30 to 40% of that company um you knowless and there's talk of price floors and the like in there but this is like I don't know who which one of you were saying it's or is Tim you know a US response to China you know if you look at that it it you know that's government Motors you know GM um and the loan program's office it's kind of like byd or catl um you know financing a leite mine right you know um ther pass is better than liite mine I think interesting I'm wondering I think ther pass was in that first quartile in the uh the Rio deck um I I posted today just like on on the other um but uh yeah I think that deal goes through um but the question is it's then in construction for three or four years um are they going to be on time you know on budget are they going to produce at cost so just like as an equity investor in the lon curve you know perspective you know that thing gets funded um you know but then what happens to the equity you know after that like what's the obviously it'll go up if if lithium prices are going up I think that is in construction it'll be um construction pictures for a while and then lithium Argentina you're right they can't really be bought by anyone other than the Chinese I think um and then I I I they have some debt and it's not really clear what their revenues are because just like what production is there you know but I just there's no visibility in the way that there is visibility in Arcadium or even uh you know some of the other names but in the in the Smackover what do you think of because you you do follow the oil companies I think uh Tetra TTI is is a name that's in that space um you know there is an Exon is making some big pronouncements about the space I mean a long-term threat to you know hard rock or you the broader narrative if you can if E3 in in Alberta you know or the Su SE or Arkansas if they could figure this out and they don't need government money they're big balance sheet you know companies um what's happening there because there's been a lot of dynamism or at least you know Koke is there you know equinor is there and Tim um you know you could plug you know panta uh is is is there with some acreage not yet you know drilled any holes um you but just as a as an area you know and a way to play it um you know right now standard lithium is really the only way to play that region I think yeah I mean you could get in it through Tetra obviously as well but you know obviously they have like an oil services overlay so it's it's a it's a much more complicated story um um you know if you're just looking for lithium specifics um so yeah I mean standard and standard is going to be like a one project one dle solution type company right so it's it it's no one's going to be investing in in uh in oxidal or Exxon for their exposure to lithium you know I think it's more just what does that do and I think people have brought this up with Rio as well is that that if you have this sort of conglomeration of large companies that are agnostic on lithium price and just care about project development you know what do that do to the cost curve longer term um which you know in the case of oxidal and Exxon both of whom are targeting you know 100,000 ton type projects not to say that that's you know feasible but um and it's not to say that it's even material to them uh even if they if they were to succeed but um you know they're going to be completely price agnostic there right so it's it's it's uh this is this is like a a science experiment right now okay um so there a couple of other names that we have like or or or thematics that uh I don't know if you guys cover it but maybe you have an opinion so like like Lake resources is an Argentine story and it's a dle story uh any of you have any opinion on on lake or Galan um you know in in our Argentina no one raising their hand oh look at I think a point just to make on lithium Bryant's in general is there's only sort of half a dozen big salars which have grade over like 400 passs per million yeah and half of them are now going to riotinto albal have one um sqm obviously have one lithium Argentinas have one there's not many others outside of all of that so when you look at that riotinto cost curve which they put out last week you saw the brinds are absolutely at that bottom edge of the cost curve but it's only those half a dozen or so why dle is needed you heard um Ernie talking about um where aramin is trying to get to um now obviously what you put in a model and what you actually end up doing in actual real life can often be different and normally um your costs don't go down they go up when you do it in real life but obviously what the whole purpose of dle is is to equalize so that a mid um grade um lithium salar can be at the lower end of the cost curve which is ringcon was just shy of 400 PS per million that was absolutely why we were focused on dle for so long before it and the smack over so just going back to plugging pant Terror which I missed the opportunity on CU it flew past um the Smackover is 300 pass per million as well as norfield Bryan and that's fairly unique in the all fi Bri all the others are 100 plus million that's what makes it key so when you look at the BRS in Argentina outside of those big um 6 700 pass per million salars none of the others will work unless you go dle um because of that grade and cost ET of it and I mean all this lithium Triangle stuff gez they're remote um I mean ringcon was one of the less remote of the lot because we had a road which went past it and we had a power line which went past it and we had fresh water most of them don't have any of those things and they're bloody difficult and very costly then to get the the projects up so ultimately it always boil down to where you can get to on a cost curve grade is normally what too many people look at and make determination of but that's only one of a few very key variables particularly when you're in that lithium triangle where the infrastructure and the costs incurred of getting there are so huge which is again why people then very quickly move to a West Australian Hard Rock because on the principle it can be done quicker easier and probably we have a better feel for what the costing might be so long and rambling I would certainly recommend people do have a good look at that smack over region and panta in particular thanks how that's my plug done okay um appreciate that um in terms of threats uh you know so those are potential threats if Exxon and others can kind of crack that code but another threat is like what happens if like avz and DRC get solved um any of you guys have any views on Africa there's also kodal minerals I think is a name that's uh coming up like we we got bit in the ass I think in the past year um by a lot of stuff we didn't see you know that was in Africa private or in China private controlled so um yeah like what's happening at Gamino with Gan Fang you know abz and ziggen we're hearing rumors that it may already be in construction but I have no idea you know Zimbabwe with with bikita and the likes if any of you Darko you guys um I don't know if you've been on any of these site visits or have insight from some other analysts um as uh you know any updated color on on those things if I can just add a few things I I haven't been to the African ones but I've been to a liite mine the in June in China uh but then I talked to various players who own the African assets as well and Zan who uh I was in meeting with Zan and and they talking about manona right and we kind of keept on going and and they're talking about their project and they got 60% of it and uh and we're going to do 100,000 tons lcu and I said uh when did you get 60% I said no no it's not the AV zman NOA it's the one next door so they already got uh a project uh that no one knows about or talks about and they're talking about 100,000 tons let alone Manana right so couple of points one uh lepidolite so you visit before I went you know the perception was this is rubbish stuff it's so marginal that no no sooner will the price fall that they'll go out of business so I visit a a liite mine operated by Jeong King special material so this is a company that used to be a clay mine I still is but they ended up getting into lithium so you go and visit their mine and it's no different to any mine you'd see anywhere in the world run by a western Mining Company quality different you know it's done in a Chinese ways but different but I'll just give you a spill so this is a full integrated player 30,000 ton elce built the mine processing facilities and uh conversion facility not at the same place in different location for 600 million the 3 million ton a year of pite mine cost 70 million us 3 million ton 70 million us 13 to 1/4 or quarter of what you spent elsewhere around the world and then you sort of ask questions right and you got to be you got to understand that obviously there's always things Lost in Translation but you can kind of get the gist of it so you ask the ask them as you're going through what's your cost structure and what do you do so just to give you a rough feel for it you know Le m5% they produce a 2.8% uh uh concentrate uh deduct the discounts etc for the lithium contained they might get $500 $450,500 for the product but then you go and work the cost structure and they're doing it for $ 250 so they're making money now this is a 3 million ton of year operation and they've already doubled the surface facilities for six million ton a year they've already constructed it they're just waiting for the final permit but what was really interesting one is that everyone so it's low grade and then you as you would right you go say okay this is your grade this is your tons and this is your recovery uh you're producing more than what those numbers would suggest and then you realize oh there's a number and 0. five is the number above 0.5 you have to go through a longer elongated permitting process but if your grade is below 05 you don't have to go through that process you just build the mine so guess what every liit like mine is 0.5 or less so I don't know whether it's 0.55 or 75 who knows but if you just do the basic numbers you figure figure it out and then you go uh and visit their Refinery so this is a new entrant uh hasn't been in the business before builds a thing in 12 months commissions it in one month to two months and it's running look at the Australian refineries they've yet to most of them are yet to achieve anything then you go and visit camine now camine uh run an Africa Zimbabwe mine same thing um you hear about while only 50% of the stuff is spam me which they can ship and 50% is pedite which they can't do anything with they've got to leave it stockpiled in Zimbabwe then you go and visit their Refinery which they also built in 12 months and Commission in one month then you say what's happened with a lalite sorry with a pedot oh uh we're mixing that we're actually processing it with our spam meat no problem so think well I didn't know that before but the really interesting part about lipolite is is the refinery has to operate in a different way because the the lepidolite mineral it acts physically it's very different in a rotating kilm which is what everyone uses so what these guys have done is we can't use a rotating kill and we' got to design something new so what they did is they pretty much make cinder blocks if you know what cinder blocks are slurry up the concentrate form it into these funky looking cinder blocks on a pallet and just push it through a static kilm right 200 M long and on the other end it comes out it's been transformed they crush them grind it put it into the refinery so they find ways to resolve these issues very quickly and the level of innovation that they undertaking is phenomenal you know just the you visit a a Refinery there's a battery plant there on one side and a peak camp operation on the other so the ecosystem so what it means is their lot cost structure is materially lower than than you find anywhere else so then you go to Africa and zian um uh was it I'm trying to think what the name was um camine uh and I'm trying to think of the other one it'll come to me um all have Assets in Zimbabwe and obviously Zion has it in in in in the DRC um and again when you look at the capital that they spent you know they haven't spent 50 million bucks they spent $300 million on rebuilding the mine and when you look at the facilities um they're no again no different to what you find somewhere in the west so they're longterm assets uh the only challenge most of them are facing is not the cost at the mine it's the transportation cost from the mine to China that's the real problem and when I talk to um gang Fang at gulam when the feasibility or PFS feasibility was done you know I think the transportation cost was 100 bucks this they're saying it's 200 bucks to move from Mali to China that is the problem same problem for the Zimbabwe mines and they got to figure out way how to lower that cost over time which means in a typical Chinese way they're going to figure out some sort of common user SL infrastructure whatever they'll do but they'll do it I don't know what it will be to lower that cost to be much more competitive to China so look they're the EXP factors I don't think they come out of the market as quickly as you as you would think but having said that most of them probably need about 85,000 remember per T to to be viable over the over the long term but I was positively surprised at just how uh Dynamic and Innovative um they are all right so Darko you you you see some uh risk of Supply from China as well as uh um Africa Innovative um you know demand we'll see what demand is who knows what the price is I I I I met with there was an analyst in New York uh very smart you know i' been on the short side been the long side you know he was like you know lithium is not just going to be this you know um so that's just going to like kind of tick up and then kind of level off at you know 1100 1200 it's it's it's going to overshoot on the upside and the downside so he thinks he sees 30 40,000 um you know but maybe not until 2026 right and as soon as he he sees that you know then he'd buy kind of like Sigma and pilra arguing as you guys have been arguing on on being safe there do you agree with that um because um Dynamic uh you know in the pricing that we will have similar price volatility that we've had in the previous you know few years or does Rio's entry into Arcadium people are saying you know now it will reduce volatility in in the market and guys I actually have a a hard stop so I'm gonna I'm going to need to leave okay I think we we could wrap up on this it's be almost two hours uh let rodden you have any final question not addressed no these are these are good um we've we've um we ched about it maybe as a as a last ra for everyone um I guess is um well actually we've discussed it in terms of when it's going to when everyone thinks it's going to turn but I think um maybe just uh if if if uh people can identify some thing on uh on the demand or the supply side you know shock surprise we're very bullish energy storage uh I don't know if anyone else has got any other views on on what might trigger a bit of a demand uptick and Rel related to that do do you see lithium getting into that this kind of 30,000 range sometime you know 20 or or you think it it'll just it'll it'll rise a little bit and then kind of flatten off off and if you think it gets to that Spike you know what time frame how go I think it's just um look really it's just we've had a few people comment about the difficulty in in picking timing but really I think it's just it's just time for us to to go for you demand to keep growing overtake the supply reaction that we've seen over the past couple of years and eventually you get to a point where you know as we've seen a number of other Commodities in in you you where where China's a dominant player is you know once the the Traders and the buyers uh for the end users or the converters indeed begin to believe that the price is going to go up then it's all becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy right as soon as they believe that the price is going to go up then you start to see restocking aggressively um and and and it sort of uh it starts to snowball uh so I think that really it's just it's just time working through the current you over Supply that we're seeing demand overtake Supply again Supply then struggling to to to to I guess re accelerate um and consumers getting concerned about they're getting the availability of product uh and suddenly panicking and that's when you see prices start to squeeze my um demand shop maybe I misunderstand it is the um fully autonomous cars so um I know the T of the day on Friday sort of disappoints some people but my experience of the wayo experience in um LA and San Fran is unbelievable and I think that's the next wave of consumer demand when when you get a fully autonomous EV that that that kicks off the next wave of demand and I don't really understand enough of what TZ was saying about their model y forly autonomous next year if it is or not but I think that could be a a huge uh pickup in EV sales and then every automatic is going to have to um follow that test league if they do start selling them into a new market or new Adoption then uh you get another second big wave of um of BB sales TR do do you see Tesla as AE of the Chinese on autonomy uh I only know what I read and um I don't I don't know they see I don't know I mean they obviously definitely are ahead of the Chinese in USA because the Chinese have no hope of aully autonomous EVS in in in the USA so I'm not sure it necessarily manages who's ahead going to I think they're going to be two separate markets you you need an industry leader and someone who The Regulators will allow in each market so I don't think it necessarily matters um as long as there is an fully autonomous EV operating in the biggest markets in the world I think there's going to be big pickups in sales in those markets because it's a completely new offering the problem in the US I think is the EV offering is not what um the consumer wants or hasn't been has been reasonably Niche except for the more recent uh uh bigger SUV EVS but autonomous self-driving Vehicles it's complete Game Changer of what a what a car is oh all that to trans okay and David David I was going to say all that to transport say the one thing outside of price that consumers want that aren't necessarily available in EVS in the west at the moment is range for one power and safety and I think that those three issues are going to get solved with solid state now I'm not saying solid State's going to come in in the next 6 months but I would say when we see that switch to solid state which hopefully is coming in 2027 which is around the the time that most people are kind of promising it that's when we could see some of those issues be resolved and hopefully see a more material uptake in in EVS in the Western World now mg has a vehicle that I think is SL to come out in Q2 of 2025 I think it's the I think it's the Cyber GT that's that's promising a solid state battery and that's kind of two years before they're initially expecting it so maybe that could be one of those things that starts to I guess get the ball rolling on the on the solid state battery cuz that's something that I'm looking at being you know twice the the lithium content of a normal EV vehicle twice the the energy density of of a normal EV vehicle I'm hearing range of 1,000 km plus and and the safety is is is chalk and cheese versus you know a liquid electrolyte so the SI State battery is something that I'm looking forward to as being a potential Game Changer but I don't think it's something that's going to be material 2025 I think it's more of a late 2026 2027 type of story that's still a lot sooner than most people are thinking for solid state so appreciate your uh flagging that because we're not hearing so much talk about solid state as we were a few years ago if I could just add uh just my learnings from visiting China and why there um probably why their penetration rates are you know accelerating is you know I think in the west we spend so much time on the technical details of the vehicle rather than the whole system of having an EV and what you do with it so for example uh where do you take it for a service uh what's the car worth when the battery dies what do you do when the battery dies can you replace it who's going to do it for you uh who's going to deal with all the recycling material that's need to be that needs to be recycled whether it's production waste as you're growing the production chain or end of life battery repurposing the battery what's the cost of insurance I.E um surprisingly you would think simply that an EV would cost uh sorry would would be cost less to ensure but enough in fact it's more because people are concerned about the safety factors and all of those variables so whilst we focus on Range you got to have all the other bits attached to it so you got to develop that whole um vehicle you know kind of ecosystem not just having a vehicle and you think well okay now I got it so what where do I go um so and I think the Chinese are way ahead of that and I think we're still kind of figuring out whether we want an EV and what sort of EV um and probably arguably they're still too expensive relative to standard Vehicles whereas in China if you listen to byd and they're the biggest EV manufacturer you know they're whole strategies to mass produce so it's basically like the tea you know the the model tea or whatever it is in in in the early days of the Ford Motor Company mass production lower the cost of purchase and that gets you into market and gets you moving I think that's kind of what they're doing and they're far far more advanced than than obviously the other regions of the world um how I think um just on the supply demand piece and pricing I mean following from what darker said there China has a strangle holding industry that um and has had for a long time um and because of that they're able to effectively price lithium so I've got no idea what the price is going to be doing from here because it's control it's an opaque Market which we don't properly understand we don't understand all the supply chains or all the um amounts of stock is or ar or or any of that sort of stuff I do think though that this short-termism which I think they're guilty of at this absolute moment is that they by keeping prices low and China can keep them low for as long as they want by keeping them low it stops anyone in the west from um progressing projects be they expiration development or even early bills and that is going to lead to the longer we have low prices the higher the price will go when we when the pressure valve is released so I don't know when that will be but say every passing day I think leads to a bigger bounce when it does happen whatever that might look like okay Hayden final thought yeah on along similar lines I think the longer we're sitting at these prices the more damage gets done to balance sheets and we sort of talked about why um you know Arcadium accepted RAR offer with Glee so quickly because I think they could see internally in certain pricing scenarios cuz they pointed to consensus a in their forecasting but if you're running 10,000 bucks a ton for a period of time then it all got pretty tight pretty quickly so I just think that the impact on them Alba Mes in a similar boat if we see these prices here for a long time they've heavily committed on Capital on a few projects that their capacity to do anything in terms of organic expansions becomes quite limited pilra is a great example they're 1.6 billion cash at the end of June if you keep the spot price where it is they'll be down to about $300 million by the time they're done with p1000 so talk P2000 and all this other stuff is is pointless right it won't be happening unless prices are materially higher than where they are today so we we that deep into the cost curve that even the incumbent players with with what looked like really attractive organic growth projects won't physically and financially be in a position to do anything so I I think the the demand story is still quite stable I mean e EV demand seems to be running around 20% perom it's sort of it's not as aggressive as it was but it's it's still growing at at a pretty decent rate and ESS is probably the the real kicker and then if we're still sitting here at these prices by Christmas and Beyond then the capacity of the industry to respond and fill that Supply Gap as it emerges will just be non-existent and we'll have another pricing scenario that pushes things well above the top end of the cost curve again to what level is the G is the guesstimate but certainly that's the way I think it will head probably in late 25 into 26 okay great Hayden thank you um I'll make a concluding thought to someone um last year I was at a one to1 conference in New York uh and Aussie made a funny joke to me he said uh the only thing um that you get when you try to pick bottoms is uh smelly fingers so um you know we thought we might have picked the bottom in uh April and we were we were wrong um and uh now it feels good the better B you know we've had some m&a but last year we had m&a and you know commodity equities follow commodity prices so are the equities reflecting the fact that prices are are going to rise maybe we need to see some follow through on these uh these Rising prices and there's still a lot of uncertainty the US election is a big uncertainty um uh you know even though Trump is is very you know chummy with with on musk uh there's a lot of resistance on the Republican side to the EV subsidy um you know the 7500 bucks um you know so Le let's see what happens um you know cautiously optimistic but uh uh margin margin of safety I mean Rodney has made the point even like like what is an equity pricing in in terms of a price and Arcadium was clearly pricing in Far Below anything that's sustainable is that true in an equity that you're looking at right is that true in Lion toown is that true in Patriot is that true you know in Winson so or other companies so relative value matters obviously if lithium prices start Rising again you know all boats will be lifted but you know beyond that you know it sounds like you guys are I I I invested more in Arcadium because it's a producer trading at a crazy low valuation and if you see a double in a producer you know you need three to five times upside if you're going to go on a higher you know risk spectr you end of the risk Spectrum but you know those who invested in Raiden or Q2 or others you know there's speculation there so there's opportunities for all types of um risk appetite in lithium as has always been the case over the course of the last 10 15 years that I've been watching it so thank you very much all of you for joining our first ever lithium live stream this has been recorded so we will publish it for all of you who haven't seen it live thanks Darko thanks Trent uh Hayden Anthony Tim and Sam and Ernie and David who have already left take care guys See's having us all [Music]