Ann: Orocobre Limited - September 2018 Quarterly Report, page-46

Thanks for this reminder about the Stage 1 sell vs production costing estimates.  I am holding with a loss at the moment, so I get it, that others are frustrated and venting.  But if I hear 'nameplate' one more time, I will have to see the dentist because I will have ground my teeth down.

Yes, they haven't made nameplate yet.  It was a goal, a milestone, a projection based on what they thought they knew when they were developing the facility.  I have invested in many companies in the last decade that have also missed their milestones and nameplates.  Only a couple actually made it and they were amply rewarded with a healthy share price.  But the reality is that there are so many unknowns that they might as well call nameplate production 'guesswork production'.  This was the first of its kind in lithium extraction, there was a sharp learning curve, they made mistakes and the market has punished them for that.  Then add in other things like sovereign risk and weather events, and we are where we are.  

But the one thing that we should be remembering is the buoyant lithium market and  stable or increasing demand situation.  If we were where we started out, with a sale price of $5000 per tonne and $2,000 production costs, our 2293 sold in September would have made us $6,879,000.  The reality is that our 2293 made us $10,000 per tonne profit, or $22,930,000.

I know which I would choose if something said I had to choose between nameplate production @ profit of $3,000 per tonne, or current production of around 65% of nameplate at profit of $10,000 per tonne.  And yes, a lot of this comes down to luck and timing, but that is true for every successful company.  Orocobre got the timing right and luck has been with them albeit not in all things.  And if we don't achieve nameplate this year, or even next, I'm not losing any sleep over it provided Orocobre is still bringing in these healthy margins.  

All the projections by analysts put this somewhere in the $5.00 to $8.00 range, where we are right now is undervalued.