Lithium and nickel miner IGO Limited (ASX:IGO) is seeing more and more battery materials pile up at its Kwinana processing plant in Western Australia as the ongoing lithium downturn leaves it struggling to find any interested customers.
The lithium sale situation has gotten so bad that IGO on Monday warned its investors “not to expect dividends for shareholders” through FY25. These once-expected dividends would have been paid by TLEA, which owns the Kwinana refinery as well as 51% of famed lithium mine Greenbrushes. (IGO currently carries a 49% stake in TLEA.)
“As a result of prevailing market conditions for lithium hydroxide chemical, TLEA has experienced a build in lithium hydroxide inventory at Kwinana over recent months,” the company warned in a dour release today.
Greenbushes meanwhile is still making “solid” cash flows – for the time being.
There was some good news for Kwinana, with IGO also reporting the lithium hydroxide refinery had seen “improved performances” after its October maintenance.
That little tidbit (shared as quickly as possible in Monday’s release) did little to turn investors’ sentiments around; especially after the miner also warned sluggish demand for battery materials is “expected to continue in the short to medium term.” IGO did add it would keep trying for sales, but it didn’t sound hopeful.
The last few months have been grim for IGO, which got hit by nickel’s downturn too.
The nastiest turn for the dual-focused Western Australian miner came a year ago when it had to write off the entirety of the $1.3 billion purchase of Western Areas – an operation it had only picked up barely 12 months before.
More recently, IGO only just avoided a strike at its AGM in November; 24.4% of votes were cast against its remuneration report. The threshold was 25%.
Interestingly, after a down period through lunchtime trade, IGO‘s price actually bounced back somewhat to sell 5.5 or so cents higher at 3.01pm.
At time of writing, the WA miner was moving at $4.855 a share.
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