Hi @CaptainBarnacles,Initial feedstock will be the company's own...

Hi @CaptainBarnacles,

Initial feedstock will be the company's own mining of lepidolite/amblygonite. If you go back to March 2018, there was an announcement that tailings from Mt Cattlin had successfully been processed into lithium carbonate, but no further collaboration has been done there. The last comment I heard on it was that the alliance with Galaxy is a long term prospect. My assumption is that there is too much risk for sides to explore that further until LPD has one plant fully operational. Once they have some day to day plant operation experience, they can look at integrating into tailings facilities at spod mines.

As for location, the costs are driven by access to reagents, especially sulphuric acid. They need about one tonne of sulphuric acid per tonne of ore concentrate, and it is easier to ship ore than acid. At the same time, the byproducts, potash and amorphous silica, are relatively low value (compared to lithium on a $/t basis), so they need to be close to their end markets to be of value.

Hence why Abu Dhabi is now planned for the first plant; relatively central from a global perspective and has plenty of industry to for supply of reagents, as well as potential customers for the by-products.

Cheers