General Discussion Topics, page-135077

a carbonate plant is much more profitable.

I'm a great fan of a Carbonate plant at NAL ,especially under the current OTA arrangement and the fact that its already half built on the same site, but if it involves bringing in a partner thats very likely to also involve some form of dilution so most benefits are lost. Getting it right is often better than getting it quick, If we were already in the process of building the refinery, as some would have liked including myself, we would likely be in serious difficulty now .

Prove you can operate the existing mine and concentrator at nameplate profitably and at low prices first then move forward, nobody would offer a deal that worked for both parties untill that's established IMO.

In general I'm not totally convinced of much greater profitability of refining under normal circumstances...basically your converting 226,000tpa of spod at a lower price to 23,000t of Carbonate at a higher price and taking on risk and debt to do it.

The current plan for MOBLAN is being a supplier of spod and keep clear of the risks and costs involved in refining leaving it to others.

As PLS has shown , there is good money in Spodumene, you can't refine without it, being good at what you understand has considerable merits

Cheers Whisky