I suspect AKE's James Bay will get up first based on stages of...

I suspect AKE's James Bay will get up first based on stages of permitting, planning and funding ability.

Nemaska I'd imagine will be producing salts before Moblan produces Spodumene Concentrate.

Would be great for Canada to have SYA get Moblan up but I suspect that will come with the next generation of producers. I'm not sure SYA will be willing to fund construction in a countercyclical manner and I have questions about permitting. Am thinking it is an end of the decade project in terms of ramp up. SYA holders won't tolerate much more dilution at current pricing and SYA appears determined not to take on any loans.

What would be really cool is for Moblan and James Bay to stop distorting those time from discovery to production charts. Part of the unfortunate reality of Canadian approvals these days. Some may feel BAPE / ESIA is the difficult part, and to some extent that is true, but local permitting is imo a tougher hurdle - particularly first nations.

It does raise the question of where Li salts will be sourced for Quebec's grand plan. The Carbonate (Li2CO3) front is easy to answer. Sourcing Hydroxide more difficult. Perhaps we will see some intermediary product heading in for LiOH.H2O conversion - be it Li2SO4 or a lower standard LiOH.H2O for further refinement within Canada - both substantially reduce shipping costs. Refining tech grade Li2CO3 to LiOH.H2O is always an option while not being particularly cost effective. Government incentives and policies will play a large part.

There are so few spodumene converters outside China and economically they best stack up converting to Hydroxide against briners and lepidolite.

It is astounding reading threads talking of possibilities that SYQ's 1st shipment could be converted in Mauritius, or speculation as to which country in Asia the shipment is destinatined - by way of example, POSCO is part way through construction of South Korea's first large scale spodumene refinery. Anyone care to name a spodumene converter in Japan?

As I wrote, SC conversion capacity is heavily concentrated within China and projects elsewhere have been known to be extremely costly and subjected to significant delays - even Naraha as a refinery of Li2CO3 to LiOH.H2O in Japan suffered from this. It isn't easy and the Chinese really do have a large headstart in terms of technical capabilities to go along with their other competitive advantages.

I would not be surprised if most Canadian battery production is geared towards LFP as a pragmatic solution to Hydroxide supply constraints. We could spend days arguing the merits of LFP vs high Nickel chemistries, but LFP would be an interesting (forced?) choice for a cold weather nation like Canada.

There will still be strong demand for Hydroxide based battery chemistries in North America but likely that the salt be sourced elsewhere. Important to remember that Hydroxide can be used for LFP - consider it the jack of all trades salt for cells - and some OEMs prefer it. The hydrothermal method of producing LFP requires Hydroxide.

Chinese Lepidolite (Mica) and Brine are typically destined to Carbonate, while Hydroxide is predominantly the choice for Spodumene. There are exceptions now and have always been. For a number of years Livent was the primary source of Hydroxide for Tesla (through Panasonic) and this originated from Argentine Brine. Toyota Tsusho is working with Allkem on the Naraha refinery previously mentioned to convert low grade Li2CO3 to LiOH.H2O.

For the sake of clarity I have always been an advocate of LFP on a horses for courses basis and argued that once the China patent exclusivity expired LFP would experience a global uptick. I recall debating the merits of LFP with posters who were adamant that Tesla would never put "inferior" cells in any of their vehicles. I tried explaining LFP wasnt necessarily inferior. There are many excellent well suited applications for LFP in passenger vehicles. The ingenuity that was spearheaded by BYD and CATL to make the LFP cells a part of the structural component of vehicles and in doing so be able to reduce the space required along with weight to approach the performance of high Nickel cells is to be applauded.

It feels like every 18 months the industry expectations are flipped on their head with various advances between the 2 competing Li-ion technology families. I recall Toyota determined to unveil solid state lithium cell vehicles for the Tokyo Olympics. That next generation has taken a great deal more time than expected to eventuate. However even when such a great leap forward eventuates, LFP isn't going anywhere. As I wrote, horses for courses.

I cannot predict the future but one thing I am confident in asserting is that if a greenfield choice is to made today to produce Carbonate or Hydroxide from Spodumene Concentrate then it is a no brainer. NAL is a bit of a mystery as there is a "half built" Carbonate refinery and what components are existing and what need replacing are a bit unknown given SYA chose not to provide a PFS to complete the plant. Instead there was a PTS with a promise of a DTS. I wonder if an alternate option being considered is to use the existing front end to reach the lithium sulphate stage and then build a freshly engineered back end at the nearby Amoss paper mill site to produce Hydroxide.

If there is a difficulty in arranging locally sourced Hydroxide within Quebec in the timeframe agencies like IQ want in order to meet the needs of cell manufacturers setting up shop, they will need to put their money where their mouth is and help SYQ. A government backed low cost loan or grant would no doubt speed things up and incentivise PLL to not drag their feet- after all, they do actually want Hydroxide production out of NAL. This approach would be no different to what other countries that want the industry are taking - but it would be a departure from IQ's historical control via equity approach.

It seems to me that what PLL wants to avoid is in the event of a major downturn to have an uncompetitive converter at NAL.

What is known is the front end components like the kiln that are shared for both Carbonate and Hydroxide direct routes - and not cheap items in themselves - are in place. The back end is a mystery. Given the talk of many long lead items etc, one does wonder why SYA is so eager to go the Carbonate route. It does appear a little myopic to me and removes the competive advantage that Spodumene has for Hydroxide and places it in direct competion with briners and Chinese lepidolite. SYA does seem determined to go the Hydroxide route for Moblan - perhaps a difficult position to justify to their partner PLL.

I hope the trade off study results are announced in full so that even if SYQ does go with Carbonate it is well understood why. FWIW PLL have been clear all along that they want Hydroxide at NAL - there has been no last minute blindside.

I understand that a even a delay of a year is a long time under the backdrop of the PLL offtake, but this converter should be seen as a multi-decade asset to potentially outlast the NAL deposit. One day it may be a merchant converter or SYQ could have more local feed.