Yep, that's about what I'm expecting when the ore reserve is...

Yep, that's about what I'm expecting when the ore reserve is announced. It might be less if the conversion isn't great, but the resource is so shallow I think it should convert well.

Alvarroes has a similar volume as well, so the two combined could potentially support P1 for 25-30 years. More drilling would be required for that, but not a huge amount.

When you say "legit full-scale" do you mean a 5,500tpa or a 10,000 - 20,000tpa?

P1 at 5,500tpa, should be an economic size to build (that's what the feasibility study is looking into). But that isn't the end of the show, the plan has always been to scale up to bigger plants after that. There will be more economies of scale in getting the bigger size, but obviously it is more capital intensive and you need more material.

P1 exists as a stepping stone to get to profitability, and then provide the stepping off point for P2 and beyond.

The steps to build P1 are to finish the ore reserve for Karibib (with the Alvarroes one following along early next year as well), finish the feasibility study, get the permitting sorted, run the pilot plant again on a continuous run for hydroxide, use the material from that for qualification, and then some combination of offtake/strategic investor/capital raising to fund the construction.

The steps to P2 obviously depend on P1, as the data and lessons from P1 will be applicable to P2. But they also need to do a scoping study to figure out locations to support P2, due to the increased volume of both reagents (sulphuric acid, lime etc) and byproducts (amorphous silica, potash etc). P2 will need to be near markets to support all of those elements. And of course, they would probably need P1 to be profitably humming away to provide cashflow to help fund building P2.

So yeah, lots of steps there.

Cheers