AVZ (ASX) Understanding lithium demand

Originally posted by PASBOZ: ↑

Great post Scarpa
Would be good to get details on what Yibin conversion rate is out of PLS supply.
maybe management may have this sensitive information?
This would highlight in the Schematic charts provided just what costs are involved in the
Impurity Removal stage and the Ion Exchange to remove further the impurities to PPB levels.
Have a feeling that the Canadian results will be vital to securing further off takes for spodumene and also lithium sulfate .
ALL IMO

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Agree Canadian results are going to be a key.

In terms of Yibin a while ago I did some conversions around what Yibin's spodumene needs are in totality: Post #: 49909026, and more recently did a post in the PLS thread around its capacity to supply - Post #: 49798075

Agree, there is an opportunity for AVZ to also supply Yibin's remaining needs, but it depends on what spare capacity PLS has and what has been delivered to date quality wise spodumene by it, and I suspect there is significant scope for AVZ to possibly supply Yibin as well, given the latter's needs if it went to 100,000 tpa of hydroxide.

But time will tell, and my preference remains we aim for a decent supply agreement with someone in Europe as well, in any event. Appears a lot of options are opening up for supply with the number of gigafactories anticipated to come onstream, EV growth and likely supply shortages of good quality brines and spodumene concentrate in future. So personally, not getting Yibin is not the end of the world either IMO, albeit a stange move by Yibin to be an AVZ Sh were that the case.

The issue of quality, as you know is whether the converters are recovering 85% - 90% of the input feedstock downstream. That is avoiding the 'clinkers effect'. The more impurities you have in the spodumene concentrate in the roasting process, you will need to extract these impurities out but you also extract out lithium, a problem in itself. Impurities forms 'clinkers', and then you need to run a process to get the lithium out of the clinkers and you might only get 75% of that from the clinkers, and that affects the recovery of lithium overall in the roasting process and impacts the ability to produce battery grade carbonate. Best explained in this article:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/all-chemical-grade-spodumene-concentrates-same-harman-grant/

Too me, it is more about how much uncommitted capacity PLS has in its existing system in meeting Yibin's full contract, which is detailed in one of the embedded posts above, and I doubt Yibin would be 'publishing' recovery rates as a guess. I am not questioning PLS's product for avoidance of doubt.

All IMO