there’s been no met test work done on DEG’s Li rocks so it’s...

there’s been no met test work done on DEG’s Li rocks so it’s highly likely BS.

in a nutshell.

the Pilbara being iron ore country means the spod is contaminated by IO and requires flotation rather than simple DMS. From a production cost angle it therefore makes it less attractive to reach a grade of greater than SC 5-5.5 ie SC 6 as this requires higher processing costs. Battery grade concentrate is SC 5 minimum so processing beyond that is largely unnecessary unless you want to insulate yourself from the cyclical battery grade price fluctuations.

glass and ceramics require SC 5.5 and above.

PLS output SC 5.5 at around $1000 tonne, I think they put out a note recently suggesting they’ve got that down to ~$700T

spot price of SC5.5 is currently around $1800T, but it’s been as high as $5-7k.

Hard rock miners with ore bodies with less IO impurities can get down to around $3-400T, green bushes, IGO, AKE etc… potentially LTR

AJM went broke a few years ago because the Li price dropped below their Chinese Offtake agreement’s underwriting their finance and their high production costs (same orebody as PLS) weren’t sustainable for the cyclical low spot price as their offtakers didn’t respect the BOA’s base price. So there’s trepidation about Pilbara ore bodies unless they’re seriously massive, see AZS.