I cant see that happening. The AKE resource is circa
6.40 M tonnes already at a higher grade (circa 600 ppm). The plant there has struggled for years there prior to merger into Ake as part of Orocobre and Galaxy merger to produce a high % of battery grade output per annum. You are talking sub 50 % for most of its history. Here is an extract from AKE's latest quarterly out a couple days back and leads off with their Oloroz facility. You can see there current run rate of lithium carbonate production is around 13.2 Ton per annum (3289 x 4). In part the low BG % is also a function of the brine chemistry at this salar
I dont see why they would want more resource of the same quality when they have not yet nutted out completely how to convert to a high degree what they already have there and at a run rate of sub 20 K ton per year it would take them 320 years to consume the resource they already have there. So why would they want more of next door ?
One can see pretty clearly they have much other pressing priorities like getting their existing assets into higher production and they have other assets in development like Sal de vida and James Bay that will be the focus of their attention for years. ( Note the author is a holder in AKE and the author felt as ex Galaxy shareholder , the Gxy shareholders got the raw end of the deal in the merger) .
The way Orocobre managed the lower quality of resource at this acquifer was to try and build a lithium hydroxide plant in Japan with Toyota Tsusho to add value to the lithium brine. Again this speaks about some of the difficulties here with converting resource from this Acquifer.
So for mine the asset is more likely to be of interest to another player looking for greater lithium assets in their portfolio.
As to your question around price, there is no definitive answer on this. This is why Lel must work through a pfs and then dfs process and firm up the value of the resource via a series of drilling campaigns then estimation of capex costs and likely returns to establish its
Net Present Value (NPV) and then that sets a base line for negotiations with anyone who might be interested in buying it.
Companies acquiring others can buyout at anytime depending on their desires and own strategic priorities. That said but unless its a pure speculative punt on a greenfield site resource, its more normal to wait for a target to have done a DFS first that substantiates the level of resource and likely cost to develop it along with timeline of likely returns. This provides ass covering for the acquirer. Buying an asset before this basic due diligence is done by either buyer or seller and then if it turns out a dud would be career ending move so people tend to avoid such an approach.
(20min delay)