If I recall correctly, and the Ann does stipulate this point as well, the reason for drilling the pit floor in part also had to do with moving that resource to the Indicated and Measured category to optimise the mine plan and to further reduce mining costs. Why - you cannot mine an inferred resource within a DFS, so if I recall correctly in the DFS itself that resource was considered 'waste' unless moved up to the right category, or another way to put it that resource (which could be the first to be mined could not be fed into the process plant under DFS criteria to produce spodumene concentrate). Now it can, once the revised MRE moves that pit resource to the Indicated and Measured category (and to Proven/Probable) is established, albeit I doubt AVZ will release a DFS update of any sort, hence I suspect the comments by NF around even better costs/economics here. Just IMO IMO IMO.
Note: Also the SEZ and remittance of VAT, which did not form part of the DFS, also improves NPV/IRR.
Others can correct me if I have stuffed the view above up.
Lithium Oxide As to the debate on 46.5% Lithium Oxide I will simply say the process IMO will be capital intensive and a little more difficult than some allude to. You firstly, IMO, need to produce say lithium hydroxide monohydrate (which you produce after producing your sulphate), then convert this to lithium peroxide and then convert that to lithium oxide 46.5%. My understanding is quite sketchy though and I posted on this in - Post #: 50413883 - and if others have a better understanding on the sequence be good to hear it as I haven't given oxide much thought at all
I also provided a few other conversions in understanding what the various lithium chemicals are in an ealier post to that too, albeit the one above was my last on the subject, but this one might help too - Post #: 50071578 and Post #: 50071741
As a final point, and relating to discussions around increasing resource size yes increasing the MRE to 1.5 billion tonnes would be nice, but personally we have enough resource to continue to progress the proposed 4.5 mtpa orefeed facility in the DFS, producing 550,000 tpa of 6% grade spodumene for export and 45,000 tpa of lithium sulphate for export.
Lets just get the Offtakes, funding, and approvals secured for FID to be done, so that construction can indeed start later this year (end 3rd quarter because that is what is needed if AVZ want to be in production in their stated timeline IMO). This should be the only focus at this stage IMO. We can worry about resource upgrades and the like after construction starts, as well as any expansion scenarios that align to an increased resource. I prefer focusing in full on a development plan to mining, as against AVZ potentially been distracted in increasing resource size in the now IMO
