Spot on
@Black Cat - I rather see it as most peeps cant imagine a the new play coming from left field.
Being well out of lithium, and now back in, I took a new look at the whole thing from scratch. In four main groups there's
evaporation brine,
near surface hard rock,
deep hard rock and Direct Lithium Extraction (
DLE) brine.
Each have the usual qualifications of grade and tonnes, impurities, location and infrastructure, local and national sovereign risk, etc.
So I reckon only the best of all those will likely be operating in 6 to 10 years at the next peak of demand.
BUT not all will have the same bottom line. e.g. only the very best deep hard rock mines will make a crust, while huge near surface mines with infrastructure will be rolling in cash (Greenbushes).
Meanwhile many evaporation mines will close due to environmental reasons - they exhaust the groundwater.
And IMO the bottom line is that the
DLE processes tailored to local brines will be the winners - lowest cost and best environmentals, especially if powered by hydro, or other low carbon electricity.
Consequential to my research, my new $7 mil capped DLE baby is in Arkansas, with Exploration Target of up to 3 mill tonnes LCE, and exhausted oil wells into the brine targets and with Exxon Mobil and Albemarle neighbours of like mind.
Take a looksee mate, and when you have a minute get a geo to look into old oil wells near you for lithium.
Now that's from Left Field, is it not ?
(20min delay)