Lewis Black at todays Investor ForumFor those who missed it, we saw LB give a very good presentation, he seemed very upbeat and relaxed, like someone who knows that the hardest part of the work is done.
For him the financing is already in the rearview mirror, the drawdown letter from KfW is due either today or tomorrow...
He is pleased that cost inflation is under control, so far expects to exceed the original budget by under 5 %. He was asked about energy costs, they actually dropped slightly in Portugal after recent contract renewal and are well contained in South Korea. He is very happy with their decision to order all equipment long before the financing was in the bag, if the orders were placed now it would take 2 years lead time and would be 80% more expensive.
He pointed out the big synergies realized by the team, e.g. moving redundant equipment from Los Santos to Panasqueira where it is refurbished by the expert local mechanics and then shipped to Sangdong which probably saves a fortune.
I asked about the moly, it is on the backburner and we probably won't hear anything before the end of the year. Same with the IPO in Korea, with the present focus on the mine construction and then the downstream project he estimates another 24 months for that.
There were of course the major talking points - the only integrated tungsten producer in the Western world, tungsten now considered as rare earth by the USA, huge potential in case fusion energy takes off etc. etc..etc.
"The biggest deposit with the highest grade forgives a lot of sins" (my favorite).
Almonty is starting to think about M&A again, if the right opportunity presents itself, preferably in North America. Lewis wants to cover all major regions of the free world, with production in the EU and East Asia the logical next step is the U.S. or Canada. He didn't elaborate further on that other than they have set their eyes on growth again.