Originally posted by VivaLaVida
Good afternoon Nauti. Did you wake up yesterday feeling bored and decided to stir the AGY pot again?
Hopefully since then you've had a fresh orange juice, gone for a swim and decided to do something more constructive with yourself clear.png.
None the less, you've raised a good question (all be it 3 months after the fact); what did this statement in the 13 Sept ANN mean:
"To date, the process works have produced ~1.2 tonnes of primary/raw lithium carbonate material that has been used for test-works and product refinement, which has resulted in production of ~175kg of ‘battery quality’ LCE Product."
https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20180913/pdf/43y9d836d917ws.pdf
I too was curious at the time, so asked JZ. Essentially (in my own words) the first step is to take concentrated brine (liquid) and convert it to a solid state, ie the ~1.2 tonnes of primary LC material. So you're correct in that this 1.2 tonnes is not yet BG; but misleading/miss-interpruting if you think it is a bi-product. Rather primary LC material is further refined until the target grade of final product is achieved, eg 99.8% Li2CO3.
And just to clarify AGY have moved on from the 175kg of BG LCE reported in early Sept, and as at the last quarterly, ~500kg of BG LCE has been produced.
"During the current Quarter to date, the Company has produced up to ~500kg of ‘battery quality’ LCE Product, which the Company is partly utilising for additional internal testing and equipment trials, and also for customising in preparation for future customer sales. In addition, the Company has additional primary/raw product prepared for further processing."
https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20181031/pdf/43ztqmxpffbvzv.pdf
And yes, in the scheme of things it's a small quantity... but it aligns with AGY's strategic plan of proving the process before launching into full commercial production. In other words, AGY are ticking off the checklist, keeping their eyes on the prize of securing an OT agreement, and not wasting their feedstock in the meantime.
If you have taken the time to research, analyse and understand AGY's strategic and implementation plans, you'll know AGY's progress in the past few months align with these plans, and hence, continue to remain confident in how things are progressing clear.png.
Hi VLV.
Yes thats excactly what i did actually. Except i had pink grapefruit juice before i went to the beach.
However i concur with your comments, and i am reasonably familiar with the announcements, perhaps not as familiar as others, and would agree we take a differing veiw at times as to what we take away from them , or read into them.
Its great they say they have improved BG volume up from 175kgs to 500kgs battery grade.
And im sure the remaining 1025kgs from the first mentioned batch was able to be recycled through a stage or two of the process to improve quality.
Just curious as to how they get the split.
ie; do they get the best produce from a certain end of the filter press ? Only taking for example, product from the last 9-10% of filter pads.
I would be hopeful they have improved the ratio of success so as to reduce time and costs. Was the 500kg batch of "BG" from a 3500kg batch of Raw LCE . And was that 3500kg batch IG or not ?
You see,, the processing of the feedstock to only acheive a less than 10% hit rate seems inefficient atm.
But like you said, "they are still working on it".
Pablo was said to already know how to make this happen.
Seems its still a "concept."
(20min delay)