In terms of the recovery rate, given it is a WOF process IMO the 78% should be attained relatively quickly. And be so within the first 12 months - as they determine the appropriate blending specifications to align with METs and all the testing they have done to date - refer
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I am also expecting the recovery rate to be quite high as they run the WOF process in the first 6 - 12 months - at least 70%, noting they are starting to just mine the high grade spodumene in the underground sections so need to blend that with the ore they stockpiled from above. The reason is LTR ore has low deleterious elements and appears to be coarse and the spodumene appears from the METs to possess not difficult liberation.
Comparisons to PLS and many up starters in terms of their recovery rates and issues thereof is nonsense, given PLS for example is a DMS/WOF operation, and DMS will never achieve above 70% recovery rate. PLS is starting to achieve rates above 70% in part because it is starting to rely moreso on floatation, but I also suspect the coarse feedstock from the previous AJM mine is helping the DMS recoveries as well - refer
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DMS has lower opex and capex costs but has recoveries well short of 80% as we all know. WOF gets you to 80% and above for 6% grade concentrate (as can also DMS/floatation intergrated options). CXO is a DMS only operation and would appear to have mis-anaysed the fines to coarse ratio hence its lower than expected recovery rate in its DMS process - refer
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For those interested a while ago I posted around the reasons why companies may chose various processes for producing spodumene concentrate (WOF/DMS/DMS-floatation). From this post I go through the choice process -
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Essentially, t
he choice between Whole of Floatation and DMS/floatation becomes one of i.) cost and/or product quality especially if wanting a higher grade product and/or ii.) what markets you are intending to target (Chemical Grade or Technical Grade or both CG and TG like Greenbushes does) and/or iii.) whether spodumene can easily be liberated from the lattice at the DMS stage.
But if you are seeking to produce product above say 6.5% Li20 you certainly are only going to be relying on WOF btw, but that recovery rate will be lower than the recovery rate you expect for 6% grade concentrate
. Greenbushes itself has installed floatation units and produces some product types well above 6.5% Li20. But again grade is also king in been able to do this IMO. LTR's ore is amenable to both a DMS or WOF process - they chose WOF given they appear to be seeking at least 6% concentrate sales and they see that process as the profit maximising process compared to DMS btw.
What also helps recovery rates is grade of resource and low deleterious elements. The higher the grade the less tonnes required to get to 6% grade spodumene, and the lower deleterious elements in the resource the less cost to remove them to achieve spodumene concentrate specifications - refer
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LTR has low deleterious elements.
Example 1
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Li20 ore grade 1% - you will need to treat at 7.5 tonnes of ore, assuming an 80% recovery rate , to potentially get to 6% concentrate. But if say you have 1% Fe203 in the ore treated, which is a deleterious element, you also need to deal with the cumulative total of 7.5% F203 to get to a 0.8% F203 spec allowed in the spodumene chemical grade concentrate sold which comes at a cost and can impact your recovery rates.
Example 2:
Li20 ore grade 1.5% - you will need 5 tonnes of ore at a 80% recovery rate to produce 6% grade spodumene concentrate. Now if say you have 0.5% Fe203 in the ore, ou also need to deal with the cumulative total of 2.5% Fe203 to get to the allowable 0.8% F203 spec in chemical grade applications.
Clearly one is better off under example 2 than example 1 in terms of the ore they would like to have in their deposit. Moreso, the lower grade ore you have and higher deleterious elements means you might maximise your 'assumed profit' at possibly producing less than 6% grade spodumene concentrate as that is also where you can meet deleterious elements specs and have your best 'recovery' scenario."
All IMO
(20min delay)