Lithium Related Media Articles, page-23860

"Speculation continues over sale of Albermale stake in
Greenbushes lithium mine
By BRIDGET CARTER

The Australian Business Network
Speculation is mounting that US-based Albemarle may be considering selling down its 49 per cent stake in the Greenbushes lithium mine to its Australian-listed partner
IGO, after the world’s largest lithium producer this month slashed jobs and shut part of a processing facility in Western Australia"

What I said about the Greenbushes resource (that its high grade ore has 7-8 years life) is being proven right as ALB wants to get rid of it.

The GB mine is not compliant for the US's IRA rules and it's under control of Chinese Tianqi and not possible to be expanded due to the reasons I explained before. Why not selling it now when there is considerably good resource and buy in something else which is IRA compliant.

Because ALB has Wodgina which is very long life and relatively low cost resource (producing at 5.3%) and IRA compliant), ALB can still feed its two chemical plants in China with Wodgina spod.

ALB can’t control Greenbushes so the Tianqi gives the decison to mine it at 100% capacity and sell it to China at very low price atm. Basically the Chinese use Greenbushes spod to lower the lithium price and ALB can’t control production.

So it’s better to sell the GB stake by getting a good price, and use the money on something else.

That something else could also be LTR's KV Project. ALB may think to buy out LTR together with Hancock as we discussed before. Actually it’d be very wise to sell Greenbushes and buy half of LTR which is a very similar resource to GB. KV has more than 25 years mine life, high grade ore with very low impurities, etc, etc.

Then ALB will have the opportunity to sell the IRA compliant spod to the US. Don't underestimate the battery gigafactory projects which are being built in the US. It's huge. Same for the EU area.

IGO is said to be keen to buy ALB’s 49% share. That’d be around $4b as IGO paid $2b for ~24.9% to Tianqi. ALB might be thinking $4b would be enough to pay half of LTR at $3+ sp.

This is just speculation though. I’m not sure if ALB is still after LTR because ALB management hasn’t got a predictable stupidity level. LOL.