Ann: Mt Cattlin Mining Approval Granted , page-17

"Weighed against that statement PP is the increased sovereign risk associated with the salar deposits in South America.

Bolivia has the greatest deposits and we all know how well foreign investment is going in that country. "

ORE isn't investing in Bolivia, but Argentina. I accept there's a higher level of sovereign risk than Australia (if you don't count things like native title, environmental legislation and occasional government royalty grabs), but the benchmark for comparison with GXY is China, which as many burnt foreign investors know can be very difficult place to do business successfully.

"If you look at ORE's ground also - they only hold around 80% of the lake they are on. The rest are owned by small local miners in a messy hodge-podge of tiny licences. Plenty of scope for trouble there if some of those local miners get the idea in their head that ORE could be draining brines from their own licences which cover the same lake."

Not particularly concerning as the tenements around the edges aren't really prospective for lithium given the geology of the lake.

"At the end of the day its the ability to get the lithium out of the ground and to market that counts. Galaxy are in a stable, developed and open economy where investors such as CREAT can invest and be safe in the knowledge that things will get done and lithium will be delivered to its doorstep. You cannot say that about the salar's in south america."

That doesn't really fit with the reality that the vast majority of lithium production is currently from South American salars and has been for twenty years or so - the majority by western companies.

"Meanwhile Greenbushes has been producing spodumene for how long?? "

Greenbushes is the only spodumene mine to continously produce since the brine producers took over. Talison attribute this largely to their high grades (3%+) in large parts of the deposit (GXY have less than half these grades). There is also a market for non-chemical lithium and tantalum that they are the leading suppliers of. Lithium carbonate is mostly a side line for them.