Banter and General Comments, page-12633

Realistically you are looking at a commercial operation late 2022 at the earliest.
Talking about current Orocobre pricing that is well below the marginal cost of production for any independent spodumene converter is perhaps a little short sighted. Yes it is tough to forecast where the price of Li Chemicals will be in a year, but it is a little easier when you know the marginal costs of the competition and those current ORE prices are simply unsustainable.
As for purification of a primary grade product that is suitable to clean, there is also the option of refinery into BG Hydroxide which would have a similar Opex.
I could envisage a scenario where a producer like Livent would be looking to source additional suitable material to purify in North America. Who knows, the European market may be looking to establish hydroxide converters near their own battery facilities.
While most holders would prefer to see SDV produce BG product from the outset, I actually think it is a smart move given the technical difficulty of extracting suitable lithium from brine. Get that right first and then consider what would be a relatively low Capex purification stage later when industry sentiment changes with the cycle and financing becomes friendlier.