Ann: Root Bay Drilling Confirms Mineralisation Continues at Depth, page-3

If lithium had a poor demand outlook and any new operation needed to be cost competitive with existing low-cost open pit mines then depth intercepts like this would have limited value. The lithium demand outlook is however not poor, its incredibly strong. Its sufficiently strong that DSO ore operations are being considered by operators and past DSO shipments by operators have been very profitable. Its sufficiently strong that by some accounts lepidolite is now being mined for circa 10% of world lithium supply. These lepidolite deposits may now form the right hand side of the cost curve and influence future Spod prices.

Are these deeper extents of Root Bay likely to be in the bottom quartile of the cost curve? - probably not. Do they need to be - probably not.

While I'd expect these deeper deposits would have a higher mining cost than open pit mines, that is at least partly offset by a robust grade (most of the drill intercepts in peg6 are over 1.5%) and that transportation costs will be limited. It would also be IRA compliant supply. The all-in cost to Hydroxide may still be pretty good.