At last year's AGM I asked the question about what grade of...

At last year's AGM I asked the question about what grade of concentrate are we going to be producing. The answer from the CEO was unequivocal that 6% is the target...but there's a catch, and the way I see it the grade could be higher or lower.

So bottle roll tests and even bulk lab tests are one thing, and they have been extensive. But now we have a full blown plant to work with and refine the process. I liken the metallurgical process in the plant to tuning in your old tv set back in the day. Does anyone my age remember the test pattern and adjusting the horizontal and vertical hold? Well I can well imagine that there are numerous plant adjustments to work through over the next few months.

I am not a metallurgist, but there's the variability in the ore which can have slight differences depending on where it comes from in the mine, so there is the blending of ore on the ROM pad to get a consistent feedstock. We know that as the deeper ores are mined from the underground we will have higher grades, so there will be ongoing reviews until all rock faces are available and blending is tested. Then there's the grind size which will deliver the most optimal results. There's the specific gravity of the flotation medium that will be a factor on recoveries and can be adjusted. These are just examples, and the scenarios of inputs are constantly changing and so minor adjustments will be made.

It may turn out in time that a recovery rate of 80% can be achieved while delivering 6.1%, and that the quality versus price once the refiners have put the product through the process to turn Spod into lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide has a certain cost benefit analysis...in other words what delivers best economic outcomes from start to finish. What goes out onto tailings is a cost to production, but to get higher recoveries has a cost too. So we keep making adjustments to the tuning of the plant in consultation with our customers and depending on the inputs of ore. It will take many months to optimise it imo. But with state of the art equipment and high quality ore we will get a great result! All in my opinion.

Sorry if this repeats anything stated by other posters.

regards
DF