I'm not sure I see your point, oil fields is quoted has kb been mis quoted or miss spoke?
Larry Hill
Yeah, and just to that point, I know that you spoke about the disruptions being mostly water related. That was also cited in another operation recently in [indiscernible]. Does that have any impact on you, particularly on Stage 2 going from 4 to 5 million tons or so of water requirement and you had to change what Stage 2 water management will look like.
Ken Brinsden
You’re right that firstly we have had some disruptions from water, at Stage 1 which are solved. As to how that affects our thinking to Stage 2, it hasn't really affected our thinking in that regard. But what we are doing is ensuring that we continue to increase our water supply options for not only Stage 1 but Stage 2 of which we have an abundance of supply secured to support the future development.
Larry Hill
Okay guys, thanks for that.
Ken Brinsden
Yeah, Larry, couple more things to add there, mate. On -- we've had a really successful year during 2018 and full credit to the exploration team at Pilbara in water exploration, both at site and through the region around Pilgangoora. We've been able to open up from a discovery point of view a couple of new oil fields that we believe are pretty significant. And they have become basically the mainstay for future expansion, obviously in Stage two but also into Stage 3.
So we would contend that the water, and actually very fresh water is readily available in the region, you just have to go and explore for it. And I'm pleased to say that we've been pretty successful at that. So we made early works that we're doing around Stage 2. Water is a key part of that and we're actually developing those ore fields [ph] including pipelines and bores getting out the ores at processing.
So that's it with overall water supply. Just going back one step also Larry, as it relates to the recovery question, just remind you that the Pilgangoora circuit is different in the sense that it's a closed circuit. So we carry all ore feed through both DMS and the things in the DMS to flotation. So there's no rejection of lithia whites at DMS, it all goes through the floatation.
So my point there is that the flotation is really the key to the overall Lithia recovery and I think they're doing a really good job in terms of learnings in and around the flotation circuit and what really makes it seem so -- so hence our confidence in the continued improvement in that part of the plant.
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