RE:RE:NLC/CATLFor my self, I think this deal is really about staying as much as possible on the timeline that we had.
With CATL as a partner we're having a battery specialist
( a giant of 10k employees who's partnering with almost every OEMs and future maker of the 1M Miles Tesla battery, an inovating almost perfect V2G powerpack : https://electrek.co/2020/06/08/tesla-new-million-mile-battery-ready-production-catl/ ) ready to give us direct feedbacks on the product fine-tuning to the specs they'll need .
A deal with premium and the leader in LFP is very good, and by the way , they aren't qualified for NMC with Western OEMs , so I don't think they plan converting carbonate from NLC even more with their 9% in Pilbara ( made at 30c , 14% less then the mkt price at the end of last year). So if everythings going well we could already have our client for our BG.
Could it be for something else :
https://www.autoblog.com/2020/08/16/china-catl-ev-battery-nickel-cobalt/ https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/mercedes-benz-and-catl-as-a-major-supplier-team-up-for-leadership-in-future-battery-technology-860073238.html https://insideevs.com/news/444449/mercedes-benz-ecitaro-g-solid-state-battery/ But , and I hope I'm wrong , they may not be suited to help us get to full scale, we might need another partner for the production matters. Producing battery grade carbonate, in pilot scale and lab, seem to be easy as almost everyone achieved it. But if the guys at SQM and Orocobre doesn't fully get it with their experienced team and years of practice, I don't see how a battery maker and a junior could pass that milestone alone . I'm sure the team is having a plan and I wish we will have a veteran partner on board ASAP to make sure we're on the right path.
What do you think , do we need someone else during the FS to validate everything ( production wise ) , is it one of the constraints Mr. Perez meant when he talked about the delays or do we have everyone we need in house ?
Here's a commentary of Waldo on the foreign exchange in Argentina :
https://www.northernminer.com/news/argentina-tightens-currency-controls-to-dampen-demand-for-greenback/1003822551/ Anyhow, I'm glad we're in the first next big thing in the lithium space since a long time.
Cheers to the Mgmt!