re: Diving deeper on Standard Lithium?

I decided to listen to Lake's investor webinar from June 19 to compare their situation with Standard's. I feel better now.

1. Lake's Kachi project (only relevant project for now) is in a remote area in Argentina. Standard's projects are much better positioned for several reasons.

2. Lake's 3 biggest hurdles to (delayed) DFS and production are water supply, reinjection sites, and energy supply. Direct quote from CEO, "...first lithium into '27, which is also primarily driven by access to power." Standard is good to go re water, reinjection, and power.

2. Lake Phase 1 timeline: DFS Dec23/EIA approval in 12 months/project approved by start25/first lithium in 27/full Phase 1 ramp up end28.
Standard Phase 1 timeline: DFS June23(?)/FID Dec23/construction 24/first lithium end25.

3. Lake is spending a lot of time courting local population to support their project. Not sure if their residents will see royalties like Standard's Arkansas residents will, but Lake's CEO only mentioned explaining to the Argentina residents that their business will be progress for the sector/environment. Clear advantage Standard.

4. Lake aiming for 80% lithium recovery rate, Standard aiming for 90%.

Tough quote from Lake CEO re why capex and opex ranges are so big:
"We're just not that well defined on the actual phase and what these phases and plants will look like."

He took over as CEO 9 months ago, and since then Lake's relationship with tech partner Lilac has been rebuilt, as it had been rocky.

Lake's plan was to build one large plant for 50k tons lithium carbonate before they decided to shift to two 25k phases of 12.5k "trains." Main reason for the change is that connection to power grid won't be necessary right away with the phased approach.
Per TechVP, they are seeing a lot of interest from independent power providers and "we need to turn that interest into plans and into commitments moving forward."

I'll be interested to compare the numbers once we have the DFS for the two companies' first projects. For now, Lake's challenges have me appreciating the position Standard is in.

I’m enjoying your commitment to finding information and sharing it with us. Nice to have some new skin in this game.

Don’t be afraid to point out the negative indicators as well though.

Most of us in here have been in it long enough to know it’s not all roses, and have experienced the downs as much as the ups.

I have shares of Lake Resources also so I’m not exactly pulling against them, so the info you share does come with… well, whatever.

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Some decent sized buys coming in at close

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Wouldn't be shocked to finally see a PR Monday am. Maybe we'll finally get something with some substance to give us a bump.

Thanks for the encouragement, I try to clearly share what I learn as soon as I can.

Let me try to clarify my thought process around this comparison.

1. Lake's share price tanked (nearly halved) in the short term.
2. Why did the short-term tank happen?
3. Should I expect Standard to suffer from those same issues?

Conclusion: Lake's short-term stock hit is a result of their updated time and cost estimates, which are mostly due to issues with infrastructure and logistics. (This was reiterated many times throughout the webinar.)
I don't know of any infrastructure/logistics issues affecting Standard so the comparison has served its purpose for me.

I didn't mean to compare the companies' long-term prospects nor denigrate Lake. It's been pretty clear from lithium demand forecasts that a Standard win won't require a Lake loss.

Personal context: this has been my first single stock buy and I bought more than I want to keep long term. It has been my hope that a successful DFS would give me a good opportunity to shrink my position some and stop caring about short-term performance.

Thanks for prompting this clarification, and I hope it was successful.

The last good news they broke was on a Friday.

Who knows?

Not to mention, who knows for sure it will be good?

I was hoping for a "it will cost $xxx,xxx,xxx to build and we will start construction on xx/xx/2024

Short selling demand has gone down. My Schwab SFLP has decreased from 16% to 15% since last week.

Boy, they really are going to wait until the last possible moment for the DFS

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Short selling demand has gone down. My Schwab SFLP has decreased from 16% to 15% since last week.

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Mine has gone up. Getting 20% now. Think this is the highest it's been since the run to $10+.

My guess is folks are shorting heavily, betting on a price drop if SLI misses the DFS 1H 'deadline'.

If the DFS does come before a price drop, that might mean we'll see an even more exaggerated move as people not only buy in but try to cover their short position on top of that.