I don't believe ATL will ascend to Tier 1 battery status...

I don't believe ATL will ascend to Tier 1 battery status @Poohbear, primarily due to their production volume. According to the top notes, BMI specifies that a certain production quantity (measured in GWh) is required, with tiers determined by industry reputation for both quantity and volume. ATL has the quality aspect covered, given their partnerships with Samsung and Apple. However, their focus on consumer electronics means they require much lower volumes of lithium compared to true Tier 1 players. Consequently, I don't see ATL advancing to higher tiers unless their business model changes significantly.

While ATL seem interested in expanding, I think their enthusiasm might be overstated. There's still no offtake agreement, just a small investment. Moreover, AGY wasn't the first ASX lithium venture they invested in. Seven months ago, ATL made a $3m strategic investment in Lithium Star, a subsidiary of St George Mining (SGQ). Despite Lithium Star not yet defining a spodumene resource and being just another WA spodumene nearology play, ATL still chose to invest in them.

All that being said, I don't think the "tiers" are all that relevant or important anyway; I've just noted that it's something that JZ likes to emphasise. I'm far more interested in the terms of any future offtake that they might agree on. While most contractual details will remain confidential, we should get a pretty good feel for the terms (re: pricing) through initial sales/revenue figures.