Ann: Exclusive option to Acquire Renard Project, page-487

Here (as in, click on "here") is another source of information about the Renard diamond mine. One factoid is that in 2017 the mine produced 1.64m carats of diamond. Apparently one carat weighs 0.2 grams so in 2017 Stornoway would have transported 330 kg of product (in that case, diamonds) down Route 167 to the rail head at Chibougamau and beyond each year. There is quite literally a couple of orders of magnitude difference between hauling diamonds and hauling lithium: Chris Evans indicated in his fireside chat the other day that Winsome expects to move between 200kt and 300kt of spodumene concentrate down that same road. The difference is that Stornoway mined the ore locally at Renard, processed that ore at Renard and only moved the end product, the retrieved diamonds, down Route 167 while lithium miners ship off bulk product that still needs lots of processing.

The alternative scenario that CE indicated Winsome will look at is to build a concentrator up at Adina and then haul between 200kt and 300kt of spodumene concentrate from Adina down to the rail head at Chibougamau each year. Maybe there would be capex savings on the road to be built if only haulage was needed for the 200kt to 300kt of spodumene concentrate (as against the 2.2mt of untreated rock). But I reckon the permitting process from scratch for a mill at Adina would negate any advantage from that option.

Another scenario that Winsome might do the numbers on is for them to buy Renard and then relocate the plant up to Adina so as to save some capex by using a second hand mill as well as the possible saving on the quality of the road extension.

For me personally though, the reason the proposal for Winsome to use Renard to concentrate its Adina product is such an absolute screamer of an idea is that it hopefully will be a short-cut through Quebec's permitting quagmire. Or to put it another way, I believe that for Adina to be in production by 2028 Winsome must piggy-back off the existing permitting at Renard.