Aug. 21 at 11:37 AM
$LGO Two things on the
$LGO / DLA contract people are glossing over.
One: DoD didn’t just place an order — they qualified the source. DLA ran extensive market research to find suppliers who could hit aerospace-grade purity spec. Two names cleared. You don’t buy onto that list, you get qualified onto it over years.
Two: the pricing isn’t indexed to the market. Firm-fixed-price at a premium above benchmark V₂O₅, escalating 10% annually for five years. Vanadium’s ~
$5.35/lb at a cyclical trough. They agreed to pay above that and raise it every year regardless of the commodity. That’s a security-of-supply premium to keep a non-China, non-Russia source alive — those two are 80–85% of world supply.
First order:
$60.1M firm through Jan 2030. Roughly the entire market cap.
Balance sheet is the open question — which is why Jim Bannantine came in as Co-CEO this month. Turnaround operator, Brazil open-pit background, former US Army Corps contracting officer. Right résumé for both problems.
