Upcoming financingI'm not sure if this has been mentioned before, but if you have a look through the updated presentation (slide 16), you will notice that in the timeline it states "project financing (Q3 2017)". So that would entail no PP until at least the summer.
Which makes sense if you think about it. The feasibility study will be released in two phases. Phase 1 will be released in Q2 (April 2017 - June 2017). Phase 2 will be released in Q3 (July 2017 - September 2017).
After the first (or second) release, HELM should sign the contract (for 25% financing of the project). So this should happen right before CRE goes to the market for a PP. At least that's what I believe would make sense. Also, if you look at the timeline, the project financing starts Q3-2017 and ends Q4-2018. Which leads me to believe that CRE will not immediately go to the market for a PP but will look at all their options, including bank debt, government incentives, etc.
Now that's not to say that CRE won't do a financing for a few million shares in the near future, for general working capital blah blah blah. Granted, they have been extremely cautious with PP's and have kept the share float very low (as compared to its peers). For that, I thank them. Also, it's been mentioned before that CRE may actually only need anorther 40-50 million shares before they go into production in 2019. So realistically, our share float should be around 200-210million. And remember, the production in 2019 should help finance the lithium carbonate production in 2022.
I know some companies (peers) that have well over 300million shares already, and they are yet to start production. This makes a big difference to the average retail investor, like us.