Originally posted by VivaLaVida
It's a frequently raised question around carbonate v hydroxide.
To put it simplistically, in WA there is a focus on hydroxide as the future of lithium demand. Why? Because we're a state that is rich in spodumene.
Brine producers have the cost advantage where it comes to lithium carbonate, hence WA spodumene feedstock is less competitive for carbonate conversion. However, spodumene is more price competitive with respect to hydroxide conversion. Why? To put it simply, spodumene can be converted directly to hydroxide, where as brine needs to first be converted through a carbonate stage before it can be converted to hydroxide.
However, the disadvantage for WA is that at this point of time, is that the majority of conversion plants are in China, which is where the bottleneck occurs for conversion from feedstock, be it either carbonate or hydroxide.
Hence, WA is pursuing establishing conversion plants here (Tianqi in Kwinana, and Albemarle in Kemerton)...
hydroxide conversion plants due to the underpinning cost advantages of spodumene conversion to hydroxide as opposed to carbonate.
However, when looking beyond WA's spodumene sector, projections for carbonate demand remains economically viable with forecasts for the next several years remaining up to about 80% for cathode lithium requirements as published by Benchmark Minerals (refer below table - source:
https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/lithium-supply-revisited/)
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The other thing Viv might be that the unit cost after paying off any finance would drop dramatically so it wouldn’t matter so much if we were producing for hydroxide benefication.
JZs response was an interesting one on this. I can remember someone communicating to him on this and his response was “ why would we want to produce hydroxide when we’ve got excellent grade carbonate ?”
I’m taking this to mean that once AGY/Puna r producing they could market to a hydroxide beneficator IF that’s the way the supply chain goes.
Thing for me is just how far behind is solid state which demands even more carbonate I believe. Don’t quote me on this tho. I just remember vaguely reading somewhere a little while back that carbonate was the best way to go for solid state.
But like I say JZ doesn’t seem too worried about any perceived hydroxide threat, probably just becos of that, it’s a perception.
d.
