Core Lithium short sellers hit jackpot on volume delays

afr.com:

Core Lithium’s plan to develop multiple small, adjacent mines will take longer than expected to deliver, sparking a 15 per cent slump in Australia’s second most shorted stock on Monday.

Core became Australia’s newest lithium exporter in May and published official volume guidance for the first time on Monday when it told investors it would sell between 90,000 tonnes and 100,000 tonnes of lithium-rich spodumene concentrate through Darwin port in the year to June 2024.

Gareth Manderson is the chief executive of Core Lithium. Lisa Hatz

That target was broadly in line with analyst expectations; Macquarie analysts had expected Core to produce 93,000 tonnes in the year ahead while JP Morgan had expected closer to 111,000 tonnes.

But Core rocked investor confidence when it said lithium production in the year to June 2025 would be lower than in the next year because of capacity constraints in its lithium processing plant. Core also flagged a slower than expected development of its second mine, known as BP33.

The warning that Core’s lithium production may decline in the 2025 was a shock to the analyst community, which had generally assumed volumes would double in the year to June 2025. Macquarie previously expected Core to produce 181,000 tonnes of lithium rich spodumene concentrate that year, JP Morgan had assumed 162,000 tonnes while Goldman Sachs was banking on 191,000 tonnes in the year to December 2025.

Core is led by former Rio Tinto executive Gareth Manderson. He flagged plans to take an investment decision on BP33 before March 2024. But the mine would not be ready to contribute to the company’s export volumes in the year to June 2025.

Analysts at Wilsons had previously expected BP33 to provide around 13 per cent of Core’s