AVZ Peer Transparency, page-33

I think a lot of people on this thread are missing the point - this is the main paragraph to concentrate on:
"The testwork program identified that both MO17DD001 and MO17DD002 were amenable to flotation with only a cyclone deslime separation stageup front to reject silicates and fines." (page 9)


What the above is saying is that they were able to achieve 6% spodumene with Fe203 of below 1.4% with a simple process without optimisation techniques been applied meaning they will have some confidence Fe203 will come in at around 1% Fe203 or less IMO (noting head assay of the samples is around 0.95% Fe203). The simple process they used (without optimisation techniques) gets them to a decent value to start with. That will make the product very good for offshore converters to work with.

You need to read the report with the actual Ann that came with it, which I read after drafting this reply and here it is - Post #: 33223510 Obviously the DFS is going to have to do more detailed MET studies and it will be very interesting what the latest MET results show and I suspect they will be far more detailed than the way it was done last year by AVZ, and I would be expecting optimisation techniques to apply that are relevant to the orebody makeup here. The MET test report is actually quite a difficult read btw as it provides the results very blandly in a typical boring lab report framework.

Grade is always a key because means you have less inputs to produce 1 tonne spodumene concentrate and that means easier to remove impurities - it is why Greenbushes is such a good deposit. Because here at AVZ with a grade of 1.6% Li20 you need theoretically 4.7 tonnes of ore to produce 1 tonne of 6% grade spodumene at a 80% recovery rate, If your ore deposit grade 1.2% Li20 then you need 6.3 tonnes of ore to produce one tonne 6% grade spodumene. Hence a lot easier to work with less tonnes of ore to achieve grade with low impurities in spodumene concentrate process than more tonnes of ore.

Throw enough money in your Met works you will always get your grade but the key is on a unit cost basis does that make the project economic - and yes I can see what @Deboss was trying to 'ramp and I use the word ramp here literally' here on the assumption that apart from results the process of the others in their MET tests works to achieve results, the process itself hasn't been detailed in those MET tests Anns (i.e. they detail just the final results whilst AVZ has released the report itself).

AVZ is essentially saying on a simple technique alone get to decent values of Fe203, and when you read this against the Ann released at the time I would say they are quietly confident that there product will be able to supply the chemical grade (CG) market (EV batteries) and technical grade market (glass and ceramics), noting technical grade (TG) product has to have a Fe203 count in the spodumene less than 1% Fe203. And TG can be used in CG applications btw because the only difference between the two is Fe203 to differentiate to downstream converters the impurities in the concentrate have been achieved.

Note - Greenbushes supplies spodumene to the CG and TG market btw and obviously a good starting basis is its high grade deposit - Greenbushes need less than 4 tonnes of ore at 2% Li20 to produce one tonne spodumne concentrate.

Anyway, will be interesting the next lot of MET tests as I think they will be more detailed and optimisation processes will be applied IMO to reduce Fe203 count further.

Here is some relevant articles if people want to understand the MET tests more simpler:
https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Optimisation-of-spodumene-flotation.pdf

https://www.sgs.com/~/media/global/documents/flyers%20and%20leaflets/sgs-min-wa109-hard-rock-lithium-processing-en-11.pdf

All IMO IMO IMO