AVZ Peer Transparency, page-143

A lot of the data on Greenbushes floated around is quite old, but the data above I have seen recently in twitter land in something tweeted by Jens, albeit I don't hold a twitter account is actually 2009.

You can obviously see that the TG products produced by Greenbushes back in November 2009 had very low Fe203. And today the higher end TG products can be used in CG applications, specifically hydroxide production should they want to given the main difference between TG and CG is TG has lower deleterious elements than CG as per a previous post of mine.

In terms of 6.0% grade spodumene, which is what their chemical grade spodumene is and what is destined for the battery market, the Fe203 is 0.8% Fe203 (and obviously as I keep repeating anything less than 1%, but less than 0.8% is likely destined for the hydroxide market because the deleterious elements can be worked with by converters and is not likely to form clinkers etc etc).

Now at the time the above was produced back in 2009, well the main markets of lithium were in technical grade applications (been ceramics, glasses and greases) so the question is how has Greenbushes improved. One area of improvement IMO may be in the moisture content of its CG product (6% grade spodumene because at max 6%, and I note it is max and likely they are nowhere near the max, well if it did come in at that level today, instead of the then 2009, the moisture may not be that far off PLS btw IMO (which I posted about at point 3 of this post btw - Post #: 40142735 But to reiterate doubt moisture content for Greenbushes is anywhere near PLS IMO given the time lags from 2009 to now and what Greenbushes might be doing now in the now in that area.

Obviously the more recovery you have in your HMS stage of the process flowsheet the lower moisture content is as well - from the PLS link in the embedded post above gives a guage to potential differences in moisture content - page 5:
"Following transportation and storage,the Concentrate will retain moisture levels well above the Dust Extinguishable Moisture level of 3.4%(Flotation Concentrate) and 0.5% (HMS Concentrate)."

In other words you are likely to get quite low moisture content arising from HMS and slightly higher moisture content with floatation. The offset though is a HMS process has a lower recovery rate than one with floatation, noting as per point 1 of this post - Post #: 39996281 - last year's MET tests for AVZ had recoveries 50% - 55% recovery in HMS alone from 3.35mm crush size and 20% - 25% recovery from floatation making total recovery 82% - 83% recovery. Obviously the latest MET tests have seen recovery from HMS alone for AVZ head to 70%, a significant benefit IMO, and coming with that is likely, IMO, low moisture content IMO. With floatation that suggests recovery rates could be as high 90% for AVZ.

Going back to Greenbushes, we need to be mindful that the data is old. IMO because Greenbushes has a higher Li20 grade than AVZ but higher waste to ore ratios than AVZ both deposits could be comparable (but more likely the Greenbushes resource been slightly better than AVZ). But if moisture content for Greenbushes is high then I would say more than likely both deposits would be close to comparable in terms of chemical grade applications. But to reiterate the data for Greenbushes is quite old so not clear exactly the differences, but the above is just an opinion.

In terms of technical grade applications, I suspect AVZ will be able to produce technical grade spodumene concentrate. How it may compare to the Greenbushes product is currently unclear too me, albeit I can certainly see AVZ been in a position to produce plus 6% technical grade concentrate etc etc (especially if sourcing some of the higher grade areas of the deposit from Carriere de l'Este to complement the main resource at Roche Dure).

All IMO