Most of the li-carbonate produced in the world comes from Brine deposits in South America and reports on the cost of producing average grades indicate that it is about half that of producing li-carbonate from hard rock.
This is why over 10 years ago when there was a glut of lithium, most of the hard rock producers had to close down because they could not compete in price with the Brine based producers. This includes what is now Talison, Australia's biggest hard rock mine. The Greenbushes mine was bought later from the bankrupt Sons of Gwalia by Talison, a Canadian company.(Talison is trippling its hard rock production by 2013 from that of 2009 which is a vote of confidence in hard rock but mind you it has hedged its bet in having Brine interests in South America)
The only evidence I have that Hard Rock li is better than Brine li in batteries with respect to holding charge is a published paper cited by GXY by the University of Wooloongong. I do not know what grade of li was used in either the brine or hard rock test batteries. Perhaps some HC blogger can find out and let us know.
Some time ago I asked GXY the fowllowing question.
Q "The University of Wooloongong said that hard rock Li batteries were better than Brine Li batteries for holding battery charge. Is this relevant if Brine li batteries and hard rock li batteries are processed from 99.99% li purity which is GXY's ultimate high valued target.(this means that the impurity is an infinitesimal 0.01%)
GXY ans: "The process to reach 99.99% putity is considered easier through hard rock lithium than from brine"
Given that electric plug-in cars are likely to use the higher grade Li carbonate in their batteries, GXY's answer raises the further question of how much more expensive is it to produce 99.99% li batteries from Brine as opposed to hard rock rather than the difficulty factor.
Serious investors need these questions answered.
So to answer your question as to how hard rock lithium is going to compete with much cheaper South American Brine Lithium; there's not enough info available yet on the difficulty/cost of both brine & hard rock high grade li battery production to give a reasonable answer. Perhaps only time will tell. No doubt the major Japanese & Korean car battery manufacturers know the answer.I have written to them requesting info on this matter but up to now there has been no reply.Perhaps like many aspects of li, its commercially confidential.
Cheers Moorookamick
GXY Price at posting:
24.1¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
