ETL issued a press release this morning outlining their Clearwater Project Pre-Reasibility Study (PFS) and confirmed Lithium Reserves. I would appreciate your overview analysis and future potential with this new information.
Thank you
A PFS is a requirement to move a project forward. It is certainly important but we would also be cautious on making assumptions. Much can change between a study and the development of a mine. We would consider the study decent enought. Production estimates (32.25 tonnnes), life of project (50 years) and reserves (1.29M tonnes) are all solid. Return estimate of 24.6% sounds good, but is less robust when considering the very large capital requirement ($2.47B). This is a huge committment and of course most estimates increase with inflation and any delays. Operating costs are good, but again, these assume a lot of assumptions and can be highly variable. The company remains quite small and the stock needs to be considered speculative. There will likely be a LOT of dilution required to get mine up and running, even if project financing can be arranged. Today, we would consider it not overly attractive considering that still-high risks remain here.