Allkem General Discussion, page-4038

He is definitely not clueless. I think what he was trying to explain was that automotive OEMs / large battery makers want few suppliers with large supply deals instead of many suppliers who only maybe supply 10K tons per year. The customers also want to be assured that the suppliers can expand production quickly enough to fulfill their contractual agreements, which often include growing supply volumes over several years, and also deliver consistend quality.

He also made the point that developing the two Canadian projects together makes it possible to find an ideal more productive, less capital intense solution for a downstream refinery with a additional potential to shorten the development time of the mines. He said that Chinese converters often run at a low capacity utilization, because they have to use material from different sources with varying quality. There is value in refining, but only if you are fully integrated and produce your own supply of feedstock and can achieve a more stable refining process.