the other point to add to Matillas , is that lke don’t own the...

the other point to add to Matillas , is that lke don’t own the dle process . Lilac do . There is nothing in this “partnership” that gives them any IP in the technology . If you go through all disclosed information on the partnership between lke and lilac , details of their partnership are very skant or almost non existent . Who gets what share of the benefits if lilac successfully develop their dle technology ?


Now ask yourself this question , if your own a high tech patented process and someone is supplying you a run of the mill raw material that without your process they probably have a very high capex / high opex output instead resulting , you are going to extract a very large premium from them in any formalised jv . Put differently , lilac have all the trump cards .

The other thing to bear in mind even with the lilac process is you end up with lithium chloride which then needs to be further treated to lithium carbonate . So another player again needs to be involved . None of this is meant to be critical of lake but rather pointing out lke is a much higher risk play as they are starting with a significantly lower quality input and as Matilda rightly pointed out hence their desire to go hard on very unproven technology .