I don't think there has been enough focus given to the graphic below comparing C1 Cash Costs of producing Battery Grade Lithium Carbonate from various Lithium sources.
The reason that this graphic is so relevant and important is that it highlights recent C1 Cost data from different Lithium projects and adds the cost of conversion from each intermediate product so as to compare the different routes to the final Battery Grade Lithium Carbonate product on an "apples for apples" basis. David Dickson highlighted the fact that Lake had put out up to date numbers in the DFS release and other's had not yet updated their numbers from studies conducted as early as 2020 (pre significant inflation and supply chain impacts). You just can't compare old and new numbers today and expect it be meaningful.
The “Salar DLE” cost bracket is shown as
$5900/T LCE and Lake’s OPEX numbers in December's DFS were $6050/T LCE (prior to further optimisation on the path to production). This indicates that all of the fuss (read FUD) about a “significantly higher OPEX” for Lake has started to be watered down by other projects updating their numbers to reflect today’s prices - as well as the updating of the associated processing costs to BG Li2CO3.
Also worth noting the “Integrated Tier 1 Spodumene” C1 Cost at
$7550/T LCE once you include the processing to Battery Grade Lithium Carbonate. Most Spodumene miners aren’t integrated so most Spodumene will end up at a cost of
$12,750/T LCE for Battery Grade Lithium Carbonate -
more than double "Salar DLE" cost.... even with these Spodumene route numbers having been calculated at a source SC6 price of only $950/T! When the SC6 price bounces (and it will at some point), the C1 Cost for both Integrated Tier 1 Spodumene and Standalone Spodumene based Lithium Carbonate will increase to even higher levels.Never mind Lepidolite……it’s C1 Cost ends up at
$14200/T LCE AND THAT”S FOR TECHNICAL GRADE LITHIUM CARBONATE – NOT Battery Grade. So there would need to be further processing (and more cost) to get it to BG.
The final upshot of this information is to suggest that Lake's Kachi project is, in fact still down at the lower end of the cost curve compared to all hard rock sources to the Lithium Carbonate final product. The only Lithium source lower on the cost curve is "Argentina Tier 1 Salar" -
without all of the ESG benefits of full DLE......particularly the water reinjection back into the salar. The shift towards more ESG focussed production will IMO eventually steer future projects away from evaporation pond based projects - as evidenced already in Chile and Bolivia.
This information should help put to bed all of the FUD around the OPEX Cost at Kachi relative to other projects!
(20min delay)