2022 General News etc, page-288

Imrys is the world's largest kaolin company. Its other major interests are in other industrial minerals (minerals not mined to produce metal). It is getting into lithium extracted from clay (see https://www.imerys.com/minerals/lithium), because kaolin is a clay, and Imrys owns many kaolin deposits globally, and the target deposit in France is deemed economically viable as a source of lithium. Further, Imrys already supplies high purity conductive additives for lithium-ion batteries, so marketing battery-grade lithium would be a doddle, as would be the case for lower grade lithium that has been used for yonks in glass & ceramics, lubricants, polymers, and other sectors that use kaolin.

Obviously, there may be no need for Imrys to ask Primero for assistance. However, Australia has a growing kaolin sector, and WA in particular is well endowed (WAK's resource at Wickedin may be the largest resource of primary (that is, not-alluvial) kaolin of quality in the world – an established resource of 644.5 million tonnes of premium kaolinised granite. If there are opportunities to extract lithium from any Australian kaolin deposits that are commercially viable in their own right, then extracting lithium as a byproduct would probably be viable, and an opportunity for Primero.

This post is of minor applicability to NWH, because there are too many ifs and buts, but it interested me because I have invested in a kaolin play via WAK. The storyline that kaolin is an ideal source of battery-grade alumina is yet to be proven, but if it transpires to be viable, that gives Primero another source of potential activity in WA.