Core Lithium (CXO) - Advanced Lithium Project Finds High-Grade Gold - YouTube

Stephen, how are you doing, sir?

Good thanks, Matthew. How are you?

Not too bad. You've had a good run of it since we  

last spoke 6 weeks ago. Your share  price is up 50% - not too shabby.

As I said when we last spoke, the  Lithium price is about to rise  

and it did. Lithium stocks  have moved along with that.  

It's been a really exciting time and it's great  to have the sun shining on us and the company.

Across the board, Lithium companies  

have seen a reaction in the marketplace;  what do you put that down to?

The Lithium price increase has been the  key fundamental. The thematic is being  

proven that EVs - electric vehicles - are going to  be the way of moving people around in the future.  

We are hitting new records of car sales  for electric vehicles in China and Europe.  

The change of government in the US, the Big  Green deal in the EU - all those aspects are  

feeding into that thematic. Also, there  are very few advanced Lithium projects  

around the globe that are construction-ready,  or as construction-ready as Core Lithium is.  

We've also seen a little bit of M&A  activity; did you see the IGO story?

Yes, that was a seriously big deal: USD$1.9Bn for  a percentage in Lithium-ion in Western Australia.  

It's a sign that the bigger miners need to be  participating in ESG and that they need to play  

seriously in the clean energy metal sector.  There aren't many high-quality entry points  

into advanced Lithium projects around  the globe, particularly into Australia. 

Yes, we are talking about Green Bushes there,  obviously, most people who are into Lithium  

know about Green Bushes. What does that  mean for Australian Lithium generally?  

It's a strong indicator of the appetite from both  investors: financial investors, but also strategic  

interests in the Lithium sector. It's not  just investors that want to participate,  

the big miners need to participate in the sector.  From our perspective, we've continually invested  

in our Finniss Lithium project over the last  5-years to bring it to a point where it's  

near construction ready, providing off-take, it  is a fully approved project from the government.  

The mining and engineering studies will  be concluded at the Feasibility Study so  

we're ready to go when the market needs us.

We're here to talk about that today.  But for people new to Lithium,  

because more and more generalists are  coming into this space, please remind people  

of your story with a 1-minute overview, then we'll  talk about what has happened since we last spoke.

Core Lithium is developing the Finniss Lithium  project near Darwin in the Northern Territory.  

It's one of Australia's most capital-efficient  projects – AUD$85M start-up Capex to produce  

AUD$160M-worth of revenue from producing  175,000t of high-quality Spodumene.  

It's not only one of the most capital efficient  projects, it has the best logistics chain  

to markets in Asia. We are 25km away from  port and from the infrastructure of Darwin.  

I will refer people to the link below,  

which is our last interview from 6 weeks ago.  We talked about the business plan, the strategy,  

all the moving parts and the partners that  you've got in place in terms of off-take, etc,  

so we don't need to go over that, but what  have you been doing since we last spoke?

We've been drilling. We have done resource  drilling on the project. We've had 3  

rigs active over the last couple  of months. We should be finishing  

those programs successfully over the  next few weeks, at the end of 2020.  

We'll have resource drilling results out shortly  after that and a resource upgrade which will feed  

into our objective to update the Feasibility Study  for the project early in the first half of 2021.

Will you be putting that  information out in January?  

The drill results will be out in January. The  

resource announcement will come shortly after  that. I expect that our Feasibility Study will  

come out in the first quarter, with the  objective that we've been using that  

as a launch pad to target the final  investment decision for the project.

I do want to talk about something, which I  perhaps was a bit dismissive of last time  

because I thought that it was a distraction, that  is your Gold project. What's been happening there?

It's pretty exciting stuff; as a group  of geologists and technical boys,  

we really believed there was a substantial Gold  

system at play. We delivered some pretty exciting  early-stage results, but the results that we  

released today from the Bynoe Gold project are  really substantial, and it's the best results to  

date to show that we've got a large Gold system  at play. The guys have found 80 Gold nuggets  

over a 1.5km strike length. There is a  Gold-quartz vein system that's 150m wide.  

This Gold target is only 3-4km away from our  main Lithium project, it's a 10 minute-drive.  

The resource drilling is almost complete. We  will put some holes into this Gold prospect  

between now and Christmas, and I'm expecting some  pretty exciting results for our shareholders.

What are you going to do? You're  building a picture on the Gold side,  

and we talked before about whether this was  a distraction, but seeing what you're seeing,  

are you going to divert any more cash towards it?

It certainly has upside for our  shareholders. We're very much focused on  

delivering the Finniss Lithium project. We have  been dedicated to that for the last 5-years,  

we are not going to stop that, but as we have  something that's as obvious and as close to  

that project, where our geologists  can easily do some work on the side,  

we'll add that value because we think  there is some really exciting upside here.

It's only been 6-weeks, but you have significantly  more information than when we talked last time.  

Will you look to monetise it? Will you  bring in a JV partner, or because it's  

so close and you've got the skill sets, do  you crack on yourselves. What's happening?

Let's just see what those drill results come up  with and then we'll discuss where we are going.  

As I said, it could be an  exciting ride for shareholders.

It could be. You're not going  to give any more clues away,  

but you're obviously delighted with  how that's going. Talk to me about the  

Finniss project in the context of timing for  next year; what big moments are we looking for?

I've got drill results coming out in January,  a resource upgrade shortly after that.  

I would suggest that we're looking to target  the release of the updated Feasibility Study  

towards the end of Q1, that's about  preparing the project and the company  

for targeting the final investment  decision around the middle of next year.

There is the old financing conundrum, which again,  

you'll be able to solve once you get  the Feasibility Study out, I suspect?

Yes, the markets are open. Access to equity  capital is there. You've seen equity markets  

raise $100Ms for the Lithium stocks in  recent weeks. There is a real enthusiasm  

for our investors, both retail, institutional  

and strategic now we're seeing the mining industry  get into the Lithium sector whilst they can.

We noticed an ASX price query announcement.  What was going on there, anything untoward?

The share price is going up, it is going  up aggressively. The company's share price  

is moving up on really high volumes  as the investment markets recognise  

that there are very few high-quality Lithium  

plays to get exposed to. Our response back to the  ASX is that there's a lot of interest in Lithium  

stocks, particularly in Core, because we're  the most advanced Lithium project in Australia.

Thanks for the catch up. We saw what happened  with the share price and we thought there must be  

something going on there. I appreciate you taking  the call and I look forward to speaking to you in  

the new year, probably in Q1 at some point.  It sounds like there will be a lot more news.

Sure. Nice to speak again,  Matthew. Have a good break.