I don’t want to dampen your enthusiasm, FFX have managed to get Goulamina happening and now it’s not the main dish just a side dish, which is a huge relief for everyone.
Just a couple of things the DFS is unlikely to mean much to Ganfeng. They may have other ideas about processing the lithia in the resources. I am guided by the FFX investor presentation -joint-venture-with-ganfeng-overview indicating with an “if” that there is to be a review of the assumptions in the DFS.
Page 10
“••••••Firefinch and Ganfeng have agreed to vote in favour of the FID if the post-tax real internal rate of return for Goulamina is greater than 15%
—This provides significant contingency given the October 2020 Goulamina Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) outlined a post-tax IRR of 46.7%1••••••”
https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/ann-joint-venture-with-ganfeng-overview.6112394/
Ganfeng may not need to produce SC6, which was FFX’s holy grail to the market.
Why I say this is there is no precedent I can see where a miner grinds hard rock pegamtite containing lithia material to ~150 microns for the whole deposit. What you see is a range from 250 LTR or 500,1000,2000micron AJM
PLS have not disclosed but I think they are more flotation dependent than AJM was due to the coarser grained structure of its hard rock lithia. Whereas FFX has fine grained spodumene hence the increased processing to release the lithia from its mineral host and impurities.
All this above begs the question : what grade of product will Ganfemg produce and sell at? What is optimal? Since there is no pressure to sell SC6 the ultra fine fines and it’s management is not necessarily axiomatic as it was for FFX in its marketing or it’s aspirations for a downstream strategy to vertically integrate itself into the market.
Ganfeng eventually taking 100% of off take tells you the product will be according to their taste.
Hence higher processing costs or higher throughput for a lower grade that can be adjusted in China are options for Ganfeng because it is and FFX are willing to accept a lower IRR, as low as 16% from the DFS 47%. Time will tell hopefully what the truth is
