<0.8% = High quality Battery grade, page-30

'0.8% maximum Fe3O3 for high quality battery grade'

You can make battery grade carbonate or hydroxide out of just about any type of spodumene concentrate irrespective of iron content because the iron is generally pretty easy to remove. Some impurities do drive up costs, for example magnesium contamination in lithium brines from some domestic Chinese producers but iron isn't a huge issue and definitely doesn't stop the production of battery grade carbonate/hydroxide for EV use. Here is an interesting discussion of the issue (link),

'There is wrong impression that iron and mica cause excessive troubles in the converter. I had used low grade spodumene concentrate with both iron and mica reached around 4% to produce much better than battery grade lithium carbonate in a commercial plant. Some forms of iron and mica may create problems, but in general, the iron and mica are nuisances rather than trouble markers. Iron is very easy to remove during or after leach and mica is hardly leachable in the typical sulphate process.
Other impurities may cause more troubles than those caused by iron and mica. It is impossible to cover the topic in full in this short article.'

Offtake partners have specification requirements that miners need to meet. Their plants are calibrated (this takes time) to the concentrate they use and thus, more imporant is consistency of the concentrate deliveries. Namely ensuring that ships that arrives has a product similar to the last. I never saw the iron issue as a problem for PLS if it was within specs (nor have offtake partners according to PLS annoucements) but was more concerned about the variability which is something that PLS seem to be addressing.

With respect to the slow down in exports, I don't think its really an issue with quality as opposed to simple market oversupply. A40 high prices were being highlighted as an example of quality superiority over PLS. Turned out to be complete nonsense with A40 struggling to sell anything at those prices today. GXY's high prices should of been a give away with their low grade and higher mica content (improved in the last quarter). GXY have also come down now in sale price but likely have customers whose converter plants have been calibrated well for their output over time.

So while the long term position of EV driving demand is still there (50% growth YOY so far in 2019), a lot of SC6 output has come online at once, flooding the market and thus putting everyone into difficulty (lowest cost established producers like Greenbushes obviously doing the best). Just to give one example, Greensbushes export output went from 31kt in Jan to 76kt in July according to some posted numbers. This increase just in 2019 is literally AJM+PLS combined. Little wonder the market needs time to absorb it all with demand growth and conversion capacity.