AKE (ASX) Allkem General Discussion

Originally posted by triage: ↑

I think there are two named Rincon projects. The one Rio is buying is from private equity group Sentient Equity Partners. They provide a link to a stand alone website. Here is some info, including a short video which is informative.

https://www.rinconmining.com/salar-del-rincon/

Not to be confused with the Rincon Lithium project: https://www.argosyminerals.com.au/rincon-lithium-project-argentina

Seems the project Rio is buying is to produce about 50ktpa over 40 years.

The really spooky thing for Allkem is that Rio's Rincon project is another proposing to use direct lithium extraction from the brine rather than using evaporation. Evaporation not only takes up lots of capex and time but is extremely inefficient in extracting lithium. I recall one claim that DLE extracts as much as twice as much lithium as extracted by evaporation. Good for Allkem as long as it has access to that type of technology but not so good if it is using evaporation and a predator can come in and use some form of DLE. I know Lake Resources are also intending to not use evaporation in their projects. My understanding is that the key thing holding back commercialising DLE is that currently is not very consistent in what it produces. But I cannot imagine Rio would line up a project with dodgy processes.

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Yes, I'm aware but others may not be. Thanks for sharing though.

DLE is not a proven at-scale production technique afaik.
Rio may be convinced it will work, but based on what?
If it was so good, why would Rincon be selling for peanuts instead of financing, building and operating their project? They have long made it sound like such a "done deal" wrt to the processing solution being sorted. I doubt it.
After all, 50kpta is circa $1B revenue per year...???
Selling a "done" project for circa 1 year's revenue? Nah. Smells fishy.

In any case, it brings new attention to the sector and shows that the big dogs are fishing.
IMO Rio would be better off buying GLN or going the whole hog and taking over PLS or similar...?
Maybe they will at some point?
It should revive interest in Li brine and Argentina in particular, by those that simply follow the big dogs.... The rest of us already know the potential!

BTW no issue imo with the tried and proven method of evaporation - utilising free energy from the fireball in the sky makes great sense to me. DYOR on energy and water requirements for DLE, it's not all it's cracked up to be afaict.

Ps. don't underestimate the potential of the big dogs to make poor decisions - it happens more that most realise!

Time will tell!
GL to 'em as we'll need all the lithium we can produce and then some over the coming decade!