I've said this on the King River threads previously, and here; the best result for SUV is to deploy their capital efficiently. At the moment, the kaolin export option from White Cloud has low capital requirements, high margins, simplicity of product offtakes, and is well within the wheelhouse of expertise of the various people who are publicly involved (Directors and management).
HPA appears attractive because of the ease of availability of the product, and high margins on offer. However, the margins will fall over time as customers gain more choice and increasing supply (we are involved in capitalism and free markets, right? the commentators on KRR, FYI and even A4N are hoping we aren't). It's not hard to increase supply into a market when your raw material is virtually ubiquitous in W.A.. SUV has good gear, but so does FYI and ATC. We're talking 50Ktpa of kaolin - minuscule amounts compared to the 1Bt of resources already available (SUV, WAK, ADN, FYI, ATC, others), and the billions more easily drilled up (LRS, OAR, AX8, etc etc).
Chemically, mineralogically, there's not much between the known kaolins. I'm sure SUV's boffins would disagree, but effectively this is true. Maybe ADN gets 5N from one gas sparge. But I strongly advise looking into what they've actually done for their met, which is barely more than SUV.
So. If you had $250M to blow on a HPA processing plant, who would you blow it on? The guys who claim US$5800/t AISC, or $6200 AISC, or $6400/t AISC? Would you pencil in the full 10Ktpa of 5N HPA at US$50K when the demand isn't even there for it, at all? When there's, arguably, no need for this level of purity in an inert component of a battery?
To my mind, SUV should stick to it's knitting and just do what West Australians do best: dig up the easiest rocks and throw them on a boat. Cheap.
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