Ok I'll bite.
Just to be clear I am a non-holder and am only here out of interest, I like what the company has done and is looking to do. Full credit to the co for getting this thing built in a challenging environment.
I have no interest in beating up the co, only to clarify info. Apologies for typos I do this on my phone.
1. "We can't even produce less than 6% when our high quality feedstock completes the WOF process circuit".
Incorrect.
Physical Recovery (%) = (Volume Produced (t)* Final Product Grade (%)) / (Plant Feed (t) * Head grade (%))
Final product grade is what you target for a given recovery rate it is not a given or solely determined by head grade it is based on how well the plant performs.
Recovery rate is the most important variable driving plant performance and economics. I.e. more product sold and less reporting to tailings as waste.
Achievable recovery rates increase with grade but the relationship follows a convex curve, above 1.5% head grade the incremental benefit to recovery is negligible, it does however improve your tonnes produced.
Well aware recovery is impacted by what you posted (link I have not read - what I write is based on my knowledge of the sector). But let's expand on that for everyones benefit.
A. HEAD GRADE - as above, recovery improves with grade but with diminishing returns above a certain head grade.
B. IMPURITIES - one of the most important factors, cleanliness and consistency of what you present to the plant has a direct impact on recoveries. This can come from a number of sources (i) host rock (ii) embedded in spodumene lattice (iii) mining (iv) plant itself
(i) host rock - transitional / host rock material inevitably finds its way into the feed material presented to the plant by way of dilution. Mining isn't done with teaspoons, while you can deleneate ore from host rock by marking out your mining blocks, blasting will inevitably smear some host rock material into your ore. Unavoidable but manageable. This presents a bigger issue for open cut mining. For Liontown longer term as they transition fully to underground, mining will be much more selective, you can follow the orebody much closer and delineate much better, akin to mining with a teaspoon and taking only what you want, intentionally. For open cut, optical ore sorting removes a lot of the unwanted host rock / transitional material.
(ii) Embedded in spodumene lattice, the flow sheet is speciricallt designed to manage these impurities as it is not something that can be done via mining hygiene.
(iii) Mining - drill and blast, iron will inevitably find its way into the ore when drilling / blasting but is less prevalent and can be managed by flow sheet design. Unintentional contamination introduced by rehandling ore. Something Liontown has worked to address by lining the rom pad to minimise potential contamination by surface
material on rom pad when rehandling / loading ore from stockpile to crushing circuit.
(iv) Plant itself - steel ball mills will disintereste over time presenting iron in the crushed material reporting to the float circuit. Again inevitable but designed for by the flow sheet.
C. PARTICLE SIZE AND DISTRIBUTION - particle size and consistency is key to steady floatation performance. Correct particle size determines how well the spodumene adheres to the collector in the float cell. The metallurgical properties of ore determine the method chosen for recoveries, dms/hms vs floatation. Those at Liontown favour floatation, fine grained, elongated crystals which increase surface area for collector adhesion. Consistenct and distribution is something Liontown have factored in by employing the crushed ore bin, to ensure consistent crushed ore material distribution is presented to the ball mill. This should improve consisrency of particle size presented to the mill and therefore presented to the float cells.
Further on recovery, it isn't as simple as great head grade is fine, particle size is fine, impurities are fine here is 80% recovery. Floatation is tricky, it requires careful management of reagent regime, to ensure correct dosing of reagent, pH level, temperature, viscosity of pregnant liquor, frother performance, collection of froth etc etc. It requires learning and fine turning, it's not a turn key but benefiting from prior learnings is a big advantage and accounting for known issues as liontown have tried to do.
2. "No it's not. No one other than Greenbushes can produce 6% spod other than a lab environment. Only LTR can produce 6% plus spod together with GB."
Incorrect, almost every other longer dated lithium producer in WA has a history of producing 6% spodumene. This includes, Pilbara, altura, mt Marion, bald hill etc. Have a look at their quarterlies over the past 4 years. The market standard was 6% and offtakers refused anything less than. This ofcourse was during a significant downturn where offtakers were spoilt for choice and could cherry pick the highest grade material. This came at a cost to most spod producers as it directly impacted their achievable recovery rates and inturn their cost of production. Times have changed.
3. "Our spod has to go through the state of the art floatation cells in the WOF (Whole Ore Floatation) circuit. All of the other producers including Greenbushes and PLS use DMS and HMS together with floatation."
Incorrect. Wodgina is a WOF circuit. The others use a combination because the ore is variable and the processing approach caters for that variability.
4. "Nothing is linear in spodumene processing."
I was referring to pricing being linear.
5. Re comment on sag vs ball mill, hpgr etc etc
Agree, sag suitable for characteristics of ore and should be more efficient across multiple fronts.
Aimo
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