Ann: Caesium product development expands offtake options, page-102

(I had typed this up last night, but it got late. Apologies for the delay.)

All very interesting @In4apenny, especially the price premium of catalyst caesium. A couple of months ago a few of us were trying to find caesium and rubidium prices that weren't by gram or ampoule. Yes, opaque is a good description. I believe @Bayhunter was wanting to update a chart to accurately reflect P1 cash flow, as LCE prices were rising. Excellent point about the expanded opportunities for rubidium sulphate, when no longer substituted for caesium sulphate.

Thank you for sharing the link to the UK's Critical Minerals Association. I've wondered if zinnwaldite and polylithionite's "by-products" have been a factor assisting the generous flow of grants through Cornish Lithium's door, additionally of course to supplying lithium to all the battery plants presently in the pipeline for the UK.

Re the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries, the rubidium report includes the same paragraph on Karibib as caesium's, with the addition of one sentence:

The primary processing plant of rubidium compounds globally, located in Germany, has reportedly operated far below capacity for the past few years.

Would you by any chance know if this is BASF? A month or two ago, I tried to find out more, but couldn't come up with anything conclusive. @Cljping mentioned when we were discussing the USGS reports earlier that the US have been aware of Karibib for a while. Knowing what we know now, it's easy to see why.

Re BASF and Desert Lion, I too thought they had an MOU, but because I'm so paranoid about getting factual details wrong, I went back to our 7 May 2019 merger announcement to check it wasn't an LOI and was surprised to find this bullet point at the bottom of the first page:

• Desert Lion’s non-binding offtake agreement for lithium hydroxide with chemicals andmaterials multination corporation BASF SE.

Non-binding, but this is where I extracted "offtake agreement" from. It sounds like BASF, as well as the US, have had their eye on Karibib for some time too.

@EDTD well done replying with the USGS report. You beat me to it. The sources for the other document are from the early 1960's, 60 years ago, long before rubidium was needed for fibre optic telecommunications networks, PET scans, quantum computers and GPS systems. Aren't we just in the right place at the right time?