Cleantech Lithium: Short-Empfehlung von Hallgarten & Co. - Kursziel: £0.25

[zzz666]

Der aktuell mit Werbetexten angepriesene Lithium Explorer Cleantech Lithium wird vom Londoner Researchhaus Hallgarten & Company (https://hallgartenco.com in einem am 9.11.2022 veröffentlichten Portfolio Strategy Report mit "Short" und Kursziel 25pence eingeschätzt.

Details hier: https://hallgartenco.com/pdf/Portfolio/portfolio_Oct2022.pdf

Dort heisst es ab Seite 8:
"Cleantech Lithium (LSE:CTL) – The Difference between a Lake and a Salar
As if the name itself was not enough to put you off, Cleantech Lithium has been somewhat of a subject
of suspicion for us since we first met with them pre-IPO on the London Stock Exchange.
Lithium stocks have a certain scarcity value on the London markets. We well recall that the Great Dane
of a dog in the Lithium space, Bacanora, shifted from the Canadian markets to the LSE to get itself more
on the radar of the “new chums”. They bought the story initially and were finally rewarded by the
Greater Fool Theory when Ganfeng bought the hound only to have it drop dead at its feet when the
Mexican government decided that it was going to own all Lithium in the country, including the seriously
deficient Sonora “project”.
Sensing an opportunity to fill the boots of Londoners with a new Lithium item of gauzy thinness, the
promotorial class served up Cleantech Lithium. After debuting around 35 pence, it rose to nearly 65p
then retreated to around 50p currently, with a sizeable financing having just been achieved.

Some Background
The company was established in 2017 and is focused on lithium exploration and development and has
two lithium projects in Chile, the Laguna Verde project and Francisco Basin project.

Its projects are both located within 300km by road from the mining centre of Copiapo in the Atacama
region of Chile, within a major mining district. The total licence area of the two projects is 177km2
, comprising 67km2 at Laguna Verde and 110km2 at Francisco Basin. The more advanced Laguna Verde project features a steep valley shaped basin rimmed by volcanos, with a hypersaline lake covering 15.2km2covering the low point of the basin.

The Francisco Basin Project features a salar and lagoon with shallow surface brine, and a gradually rising plain to the south which is the focus area of the project. Two surface sampling programs in 2018 and 2019 recorded average lithium grades of 375mg/L and 694mg/L. A geophysics program based on a Transient Electromagnetic Method ('TEM') survey identified a low resistivity zone over an area of 10 - 15 km2. A reconnaissance drill hole drilled in the basin confirmed the sediment aquifer thickness from
100m to 220m.

Resource(s)
At the time of the IPO, the surface lake at Laguna Verde had been subject to a JORC Code measured
resource estimate of 77,834 tonnes of LCE at a grade of 246mg/L lithium. A sediment-hosted aquifer is
interpreted to lie directly beneath the surface brine resource and up to 300m thick, which has been
subject to a JORC Code inferred resource estimate of 1.16 million tonnes LCE at 246mg/L lithium.
Read carefully from the admission document: “…. a sampling programme of the lake brine was
completed by the Geodatos team. A total of 27 samples were collected using an approximate 800m grid pattern. Of the samples, 20 were collected at the surface and 7 were collected at various depths mostly targeting the deeper eastern section of the lake with the objective of determining if the lake brine showed any stratification in brine concentration.

The samples taken at depth used a weighted bailer attached to a rope (as shown in Figure 19) which
were lowered and a latch opened to collect samples at the target depth. The average lithium grade of
the 27 samples was 246mg/L with a range of 235 to 259mg/L indicating the surface lake has highly
consistent brine concentration and therefore lithium grades”.

Laguna Verde is NOT a salt-pan salar like all the other Lithium projects doing the rounds in the Lithium
Triangle, it is a lake. While salares frequently have a small amount of water on top (usually from snow
melt) this one is a lake, pure and simple. In the water-challenged Atacama (well-known as the driest
place on earth) how doable is going to be a project that exploits one of the few real lakes in the region.
What had confused us at the initial presentation, pre-IPO (and prompted a question from us) was how
(on the basis of a mere 27 water samples) the company could have come up with a Measured Resource? This we still do not understand.

The company then announced in mid-September a new JORC-compliant resource estimate of 1.5mt LCE at 206mg/L lithium. Most of the resource was attributed as Measured + Indicated. The resource
estimate was undertaken in August 2022, post a four-well drilling program that was completed in the
first half of 2022. The targeted holes are shown on the very fuzzy map (from the Admission Document)
which we repeat below.

This resource drill program, comprising four holes, was completed in 1H22, with the resource upgrade
based on three of the four holes sampled prior to the Chilean winter break.

Initially this challenged our imagination as to how one drills a lake that is, obviously, liquid? But then we see that the drillholes are on the lakeshore (shown on the map that follows). Then we start to wonder how comps between the old resource (taken from samples of the lake water) and those of these drillholes can be made. Surely we are talking apples and oranges in mineralisation here?
The latest JORC-compliant resource estimate increased by 22% to 1.51 million tonnes LCE at a grade of206mg/L, with 53% of the resource now in the Measured and Indicated category (0.803 million tonnes LCE) according to the company’s release.

We get the distinct impression that Laguna Verde is a proto-salar and maybe in a few million years will
actually become what everybody else is exploiting/exploring in the region. But what do we know?!
We have resolved to put in place a SHORT on Cleantech Lithium in the Model Resources Portfolio with a 12-month target price of 25p. "

Dieselbe Aktie wird aktuell von anderen Publikationen zum Einstieg beworben, offensichtlich entgeltlich, vgl.: https://small-microcap.eu/22-11-2022-cleanttech-lithium-lith…

Hier ist u.a. zu lesen: "Interessenkonflikte: Mit CleanTech Lithium existiert ein entgeltlicher IR und PR-Vertrag. Inhalt der Dienstleistungen ist u.a., den Bekanntheitsgrad des Unternehmens zu erhöhen. Dr. Reuter Investor Relations handelt daher bei der Erstellung und Verbreitung des Artikels im Interesse von CleanTech Lithium. Es handelt sich um eine werbliche redaktionelle Darstellung. Aktien von CleanTech Lithium können sich im Besitz von Mitarbeitern oder Autoren von Dr. Reuter Investor Relations – unter Berücksichtigung der Regeln der Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) befinden."

Man spricht in der Werbung von "großem Potenzial" und "Rückenwind für die Aktie" und "Unternehmen wie CleanTech Lithium können (...) ihren Teil dazu beitragen, die Welt zu verändern."

Wenn man das Hallgarten Research berücksichtigt, wollen sie aber in einem der wenigen Seen in der Atacama-Wüste bohren, nochmals die Passage im Research: "Laguna Verde is NOT a salt-pan salar like all the other Lithium projects doing the rounds in the Lithium Triangle, it is a lake.

Man darf bezweifeln, dass die Verantwortlichen in Chile dafür jemals eine Genehmigung erteilen. Auch ist es verwunderlich, dass man aus 4 Bohrlöchern an der Küste des angeblichen Sees eine neue JORC Ressource abgeleitet hat. Es sieht hier ganz so aus, als wenn die Firma durch an deutschsprachige Anleger gerichtete Werbebotschaften noch auf den fahrenden Zug des Lithium-Hypes aufspringen möchte. Meinungen?