Is lithium hydroxide close enough? If so, check out page 10 of...

Is lithium hydroxide close enough? If so, check out page 10 of the last Quarterly Activities Report (released 29/01/2021), viz.:

Downstream Scoping Study

During the DFS, the Company commissioned a scoping study to evaluate the potential to further process spodumene concentrate to produce a lithium sulphate product. Lithium sulphate can potentially be sold directly to chemical manufacturers for conversion into lithium hydroxide or carbonate.

Whilst there were some promising aspects to the study, it was clear that further work is required before this can be properly evaluated as a viable option. The following items were specifically identified for further review:

•Discussions with potential customers to gauge potential of lithium sulphate as a product.

•Determine a pricing mechanism for lithium sulphate. By using a lithium sulphate product, a lithium hydroxide refinery will save over 80% of its operating costs.

•The scoping study had the location of the refinery close to the mine, therefore reducing the cost of concentrate transportation, but increasing the cost and difficulty of transporting reagents, energy and equipment. There is an opportunity to consider alternative refinery locations to improve access to reagents, energy and the operational labour force.

•Confirmatory test work to support Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) level engineering. This would further provide confidence in the flowsheet design and could target production of a high purity product for analysis.

•Development of engineering to a PFS level which would allow better definition of the process flowsheet and site-specific infrastructure requirements. This would improve the capital and operating cost estimate accuracy to (± 25%) without requirement for significant additional engineering.

•Consideration of developing a refinery that produces Lithium hydroxide, which could then be marketed directly to end users.

HTH