Running discussion on SP, page-13404

There’s no doubt been a surge in demand for lithium which is only gathering pace and in typical fashion every man and his dog with any sort of a supply source, will try to jump on board the gravy train. Thing is, the lithium suppliers from 10/20/25 years ago from when Sony commercialized the first Li-ion battery in 1991 and when Greenbushes first started to churn out lithium in 1995 meeting demand triggered by the mobile phone industry ... is that the processors basically picked out the quality mine / sources and all other sources basically flowed in to the tailings dump in Tantalum or Tin mines; as it was too difficult / uneconomical to convert.

The problem at the moment; is that demand is bulking and outstripping the ‘quality’ supply coming on to the market from Greenbushes (which It’s self if becoming uneconomical due to extraction costs) or any of the other main event sources ; leaving the door open for ‘every man and his dog’ to try his hand and offload below par product. This new supply is causing all sorts of issues with the Chineses processors whom are constantly needing to go through shutdowns and plant resets in order to process this material; the material coming on to the market is being drip fed from a number of smaller sources of variable quality i.e. inconsistent. Processor are having to adapt by upgrading to and using integrated plants…which is timely and more expensive. As Roskill have said - “Furthermore, unlike some of its closest peers, Manono hosts traditional pegmatite mineralisation that can produce a spodumene-bearing concentrate for conventional conversion at existing refining facilities in China”

With the King , Greenbushes with its freak grades now in its twilight; IMO there’s no other hard rock source that step up to the plate, other than Manono to dish out consistent quality in grade and tonnage to such a rapaidly emerging market, as Manono can. The demand will certainly be there for high grade and bulk flow tonnage, as opposed to the scraps being dished out at present.

Remember AVZ’s preliminary metallurgical test work generated a 6.3% spodumene concentrate based on 73% dense media separation (DMS) and 94% flotation recovery rates using Roche Dure feedstock grading between 1.4% and 1.76% with low values of detrimental elements without any optimisation techniques…preliminary test work on conventional methods…

I think we’ll be hearing not too far into the future ‘The King is dead (Greenbushes) long live the King (Manono).

IMO, there will be massive demand for Manono spod, no matter what size they go to and Manono is a huge threat to the Australian Lithium Valley.

Competitors to Manono IMO, are hoping that it will never come on line and wouldn't couldn't be happier if it failed.

You can talk it down and be in denial mode; but Manono will happen