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IB..totally agree this seems like an End of Year report. With no news now expected until the new year.

On the LI Market, would we not be expecting to see some sort of regional pricing coming into effect soon. If government rules in EU & US are looking for local sourced critical minerals, doesn't it mean eventually there will be regional disparity in pricing?

Will SAV be able to sell an EU product into the EU market at a higher price, because the opposite will be EU manufactures facing challenges in meeting EU upstream source rules.

Bring on 2024. I think it's either 2024 or never. Not just for SAV but for EU Li and EV market in general.

I've been saying on here for a few years now, that EU will have a reduce Car Industry very soon if it doesn't start looking at the End to End battery chain seriously, and taking the required actions.

China is showing, let the Raw Li you can get the refineries, get the refineries you get the battery plants, get the battery plants you get the car manufacturing.

There is probably lots of scepticism still for china EV's, but no different to when we starting buying cars from Japan in 80's or South Korea in 90's.

End of day, consumers will be driven by cost and if a china made EV offers same quality/luxury compared to a EU made ICE but cheaper at both point of sale and overall running cost (sorry to say but the point of sale is important as many can't understand the overall life time cost element) , then the China EV will win.

Get MdB going, you get more Li, the rest falls into place.

all i can say is what a load of b*****ks!! so between june'22 and june'22 sav employees had access to the agency that would be granting the eia. not ****. it's called negotiations and discussions.

the offer for a 20mn road, is to address one of the major concerns that traffic would. go through local villages and towns. again not exactly a bribe, but listening to feedback.

just think of the number of housing developments in the uk where a condition is places on the building developer to fund roads, bus routes, even train stations, etc as part of the permission granting process. it's just a joke to think that offering to do something to offset a local issue is taken as being a negative. do these people live in the real world.

no wonder portugal is a bit of a basket case (apologies to anyone portuguese) and one of the poorest regions in europe. who will ever invest in the country if any type of investment is taken as being corrupt.

friday evening rant over. bon weekend.

Longshort. Sorry to say but you are wrong on the dates (don't mean to be rude). The latest presentation (available via the SAV website) shows the timelines on slide 16. This clearly states 2024 "Complete strategic/offtake partner selection process".

2023 was only "Initiate strategic/offtake partner selection" which was completed earlier this month which resulted in the appointments of Barclays Bank PLC, and Barrenjoey Advisory Pty Limited to act as advisors, due to the demand.

As I say, don't mean to be rude but the timelines are all there on the website to see. So very easy to fact check.

Unfortunately many reading this board take the facts from here, so could take your comment as fact and wrongly take it that SAV have failed to meet a deadline, then probably assume it's because there's no partners coming forward.

From SAV RNS earlier in the year;

The 30-year Mining Lease granted in 2006 safeguards Savannah's access to land that may be necessary for the development of the Barroso Lithium Project. Despite the existing legal coverage, Savannah will always favour direct agreement with landowners and representatives of the Baldios. The Company will use the mechanisms provided in Portuguese law but only when it is not possible to reach an agreement. Savannah wants to build the Barroso Lithium Project with the community, to benefit its members, not to impact them.

There are mechanisms available, I call them compulsory purchase and maybe this is not the actual term/process. But it doesn't say there is nothing you can do, it states there are things the CAN be done.

End of day, SAV has purchased land/made agreements as per the registered details. Surely if SAV are now being told they don't own the land agreed as per what was on the register, they must have a legal claim themselves.

Maybe we're use to UK and having a fairly decent organisation in the Land Registry.

We have to remember, that there is always the compulsory purchase option available, we don't want to use this but it is still in the back pocket.

I wonder if the local mayor is still planning on that court request to get license revoked based on all the shameful ongoings that the PPO apparently had uncovered. I know SAV haven't been given all clear yet but it would seem unwise to use the basis of the PPO investigation in any court. case given how the credibility has been shot to pieces.

Sorry but to me just sounds like BAU negotiations.

The following about the road would just seem logical business negotiations, as traffic was a concern. A new road would address this concern, doesn't really seem a problem to provide a solution to a problem.

In addition, the company negotiated with the Boticas City Council for the construction of a road "as compensation for not opposing lithium exploration".

No different to a UK house builder offering 25% Affordable housing, versus 15%, to get planning permission.

Is this investigation expecting there was a binary yes/no answer every time, and nothing more would be done to change decision if not the required one at first?

From CNN Portugal

President of the Environment Agency guarantees that he respected the law:

The president of the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) assures that he has always respected the law and the public interest, after being constituted accused in the Operation Influencer process last week, still assuming he is unaware of the suspicions of the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP).

"All the acts practiced throughout my career have always been, all of them, in accordance with the Law and with respect for the strict public interest and legal criteria," says Nuno Lacasta, in a note sent to Lusa, in which he also emphasizes to recognize this conduct in the other APA employees.

Nuno Lacasta also stresses his willingness to provide clarification on this process, which is related to the exploitation of lithium in Montalegre and Boticas (both district of Vila Real), with the production of energy from hydrogen in Sines, Setúbal, and with the project of construction of a data center (data center) in the industrial and Logistics zone of Sines by the company Start Campus.

From following.....Say reports, “Student Climate Strike activists are demanding an end to fossil fuels by 2030

https://www.portugalresident.com/climate-activists-occupy-schools-and-universities/

You know what will help with that, more EV's using EU sourced Li. Now where could that come from???

Facts are wrong in the Article, it states;

'the EIA received a "non-favorable" opinion in June 2022, and the company was given another opportunity to reformulate the project under the "new legal regime, approved earlier this year and made as a measure to 'simplify' the Environmental Impact Assessment processes"

This actually that never happened, they never gave any opinion and asked for further clarification and additional details. It was never actually rejected as this would suggest.

What actually happened was;

"Before giving its final 'Declaration of Environmental Impact' ('DIA') decision, APA has proposed that the EIA evaluation process should now continue under Article 16 of Decree-Law No. 151-B/2013,"

I understand it might seem like SAV failed and then got through on an underhand deal, but truth is the EIA took about 2 years and went thorough review.

Totally agree. Having been making this point for last few days.

What get's me, is there was always going to be elections between now and SAV putting a shovel in the ground. So what's really changed?

It would be really interesting to see how the local mayor has to deal with their party leading the Government, is/when this new government understands the absolute need for MdB.

Maybe it's a blessing to have elections now, to force the opposition to say what they really will do. We only know to well from UK that what you say in opposition suddenly changes once in power.

Trading on about 4-5 x cash balance now, soon we'll be worth more as a cash fund not a mining prospect.

The MM's have played a blinder here, have ticked down the price to force a fire sale by most. I don't blame anyone for selling it is each to their own.

But personally I would rather take a hit on real reasons not speculative assumptions, but then I accept that is what everyone own investment risk level.

Here's to hoping it's Friday end of week market blues, hopefully over weekend some risk takers will see what great value SAV could offer and buy in next week.

Either MM's are playing silly old games (again) or there's some heavy sell's to still come through. Can't see why SP has fallen so much more today. What is different today then close of play Wednesday? Election? Well if anything this gives some level of line in the sand.

I think SAV need to get some resource updates out soon, they need to remind everyone of the importance of MdB. I appreciate this is nothing to do with the BOD but they should be showing its business as usual where possible and getting good news out. Now is the time to probably be more proactive on real news then ever before.

So now the dust has had a bit of time to settle, maybe good time to reflect where we really are;

Are SAV innocent:

In my view yes, I don't see that SAV have ever looked to influence any decision making. Does this mean ministers inside government haven't tried to get MdB approved for their own reasons, I don't know but can't see how SAV can be blamed for anything if this is the case. If it has been done then I would see SAV as having a case to question why this was being done without their knowledge. So I will work on assumption that SAV and the EAI are all good.

Elections:

Will be in March, the corruption case will be a major part of the election campaign but will Li mining itself be part of the overall campaign. As much as the local mayor who is a member of the main opposition party (SDP) is anti-mine is the overall SDP Anti-mine? We know from UK that local councillors will often have views aligned to local residents but at a national level things are different. Any party coming into power in Portugal will know that the EU controls massive amounts of money that will help economy, and whatever they think they know that LI mining will help release major money.

So in my view elections are a distraction for politicians not for SAV.

MdB Progress:

Let's remember no shovel was due to be in the ground for at leat 3 years, yes development work would be needed before then but not likely to be for 2 years anyway. In short it's not like anything happening now is actually delaying any planned work. So think about what SAV are doing and continuing to do as per plan.

They will continue to drill and resource update nothing changes on this

They will continue to work on DFS, it was always going to take until 2024H2

They will continue with the partnership discussions, again was ongoing until 2024H1

They will continue with RECAPE and the license applications. Regardless of who's in power and when, the actual application still needs to be done so again isn't delayed in this process

So to me the overall picture is one where all work SAV are doing to progress MdB can continue and still report positive news. SAV can continue without any reason to stop the work in progress.

When it comes to then later decisions, there was always the final hurdles to overcome and this is just now one more but does it really change the overall fundamental requirement. Does the EU need the MdB Li? Yes it does.

Happy weekend all and let's hope for a better week next week.

March 10th, let's see what mining position is off the parties. The ruling PS party had actually done well for economy, let's see if they can use this. Also will all other parties be anti-mining given how important it will be to Portugal/europe.

Is it an election? Not sure that's actually been announced yet.

The 5.75M @ 2.8665p @ 10:41 is interesting as mid-price was already below this at the time (about 2.8p). So would suggest a hefty buy.