MIN's announcement today about the FIRB approval of the sale of 49% of their Onslow Haul Road to investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP) for total expected proceeds of $1,300 million / $1.3 billion (being $1.1 billion within a couple of weeks, and $200 million later once Onslow is running near full capacity) plus reducing some discretionary spending (FIRB-Approval-and-Business-Update.PDF), was nothing unexpected - as in: it's what we all expected would happen - FIRB don't block overseas part-ownership of transport infrastructure in Australia - the Australian government welcomes it - unlike Graincorp where it was about foreign interests controlling our exports - not just the movement of those exports while still within Australia - however because MIN are now coming off such a low base (of just over $30), a +$5 move is +17%, whereas if their share price had moved up by the same dollar value just three (3) months ago - when MinRes was trading between $66 and $68/share, this move (in dollars) would have been a +7.5% move. It's still a significant move any way you look at it, and it MIGHT mean we've hit the bottom, but I don't think so. Not yet.

Wih PLS, we could well have seen the bottom, but it's still not in a sustained uptrend yet, just a bounce off a recent new low, and PLS is over 20% shorted, so when it does rise, we often get some short covering which builds on the rise. I'd be more convinced if we saw them string 3 or 4 days of rises together however.

CATL withdrawing supply of lepidolite

Need to check more.

But Better than expected

DVP up as well!

Might be time to add back??

Yes, it smacks of a relief rally with some short covering, though it could also wake more market participants up to how oversold MIN is, which can sustain the momentum in the days/weeks ahead.

@thunderhead Agreed on both points.

@Tom73 Looks like most of the lithium companies are having a strong day today. This article was just posted in The West Australian.

Mineral Resources and Pilbara Minerals among lithium stocks skyrocketing as China closes down huge mine

Wed, 11 September 2024 10:04AM

Shareholders in listed lithium mining companies collectively gained billions of dollars on Wednesday after months of doom and gloom.

In morning trade WA’s spodumene concentrate producers surged — Mineral Resources by 17.2 per cent, Pilbara Minerals by 12.7 per cent, IGO by 12.3 per cent and Liontown Resources by 11.5 per cent — following prolonged and heavy share price falls this year.

Local explorers also rose sharply, led by Wildcat Resources leaping 22 per cent.

The gains are linked to reports overnight that Chinese mining and battery manufacturing titan, CATL, closed its massive Jianxiawo mine amid the ongoing lithium price downturn.

Jianxiawo produces lepidolite, a spodumene substitute, and is responsible for a material chunk of the world’s upstream lithium supply.

The prevailing spodumene concentrate benchmark price has tumbled from above $US3200 a tonne a year ago to sit at $US730/t currently.

US giant Albemarle, however, recently sold a parcel of the battery ingredient in China for $US870/t.

“The spot price has been below CATL’s cash cost level since mid July 2024,” UBS told select clients on Wednesday.

“After making a loss for two months in the lithium business and continuous downside risk on the lithium price, we finally see normal supply response from (the) marginal-cost producer.”

UBS says it expects the mine suspension to lift lithium prices upwards between 11 per cent and 23 per cent for the rest of 2024.

The recent price pinch claimed its first WA scalp earlier this month when Arcadium announced its Mt Cattlin mine near Ravensthorpe will go into care and maintenance by mid-2025.

MinRes boss Chris Ellison claimed last month that every lithium mine was unprofitable at current prices.

“I mean, just for the record, no one is making money in this market . . . let’s be really, really clear on that, there’s no lithium companies making money,” he said.

MinRes’ extra share price gain on Wednesday, relative to its lithium peers, was fuelled by an announcement after market close on Tuesday that it had identified $300 million of cost savings and would receive $1.1 billion of cash to ease its balance sheet pressures.

The imminent cash injection came after the Foreign Investment Review Board rubber-stamped MinRes’ sale of a 49 per cent stake in the Onslow haul road to Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners.

Thanks @Cameron1 that article explains todays price action nicely.

If the story of CATL shutting down a large mine is true, then maybe we are seeing the start of some rational supply response... and from a Chinese miner! it's the irrational market response from Chinese produces I see as the key bear case for PLS (and less so for MIN), so crossing fingers but as @Bear77 meme says "One swallow does not make a spring", which is exactly the phrase I was thinking of when I saw the market response initially.

We are getting some good follow through today, so the bull case is getting a tad stronger with respect to the bottoming process.

Wanted to get back in but pushed some of that money into the Wrkr SPP.

Need to wait for the results if I get the allocation but as suspected the SPP was significantly oversubscribed even after upscaling. Will try and post later about it.