IGO shares survive sell-off as earlier flagged Tianqi plant shutdown priced in

I often have something of a love-hate relationship with the term “priced in,” because it isn’t necessarily all that often markets are very good at pricing things in.

(It took Australians about two years to stop selling off shares whenever the RBA didn’t cut rates, and that wasn’t just retail. Investment banks have been getting the RBA timeline wrong for the last two years.)

Anyway. If markets aren’t always so good at pricing things in, that isn’t true when you look at IGO Limited’s (ASX:IGO) reported earnings loss of -$80M for 2Q FY25. In fact, right out of the gate, shares were flat.

(As of 10.30am Sydney time, they were down just over 1% to ~$5/sh.)

It’s not like this is too surprising; there are not many other headwinds IGO could be left untouched by.

Tanking lithium prices and Indonesian nickel supply crippled the company’s major two value propositions; those same pressures saw its lithium hydroxide refinery JV partner – Tianqi – pretty much just bail on WA. Sure, no worries.

Not that there aren’t other headwinds. The company on Thursday pointed to some non-biblical problems at two other projects, but, reported ongoing positive performance at Greenbushes – the world’s largest lithium mine in WA – has likely been enough to keep investors happy.

After all, that means IGO is still mining lithium. Phew.

As for Tianqi, IGO wrote on Thursday discussions are ongoing to find a solution affable for both companies, which is corporate speak for “we both realise the gravity of this situation and it’s of such consequence we’re probably obliged to the shareholders to just not mention it yet.”

I’m not an engineer so I don’t know if you can repurpose a lithium hydroxide refinery circuit to refine or make something else. But it’s probably going to be that and a sale, or a straight mothball unless the government want to subsidise the cost of running lower volumes through the plant.

I don’t have a crystal ball, of course. But looking at the share price reaction, I’d say I’m writing down what everybody’s already thinking.

IGO last traded at $5.01/sh.

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