Hey
@DeFaucon and
@Darkstone,
Just caught your convo from yesterday, a whole day late here soz. Had a similar discussion over on LPD.
PosLX can be applied to brine or spodumene.
L-Max = a process allows the extraction and recovery of lithium from lithium bearing micas such as lepidolite and zinnwaldite to produce
carbonate WITH the potential to also recover valuable by-products from the Li-rich micas including potassium sulphate, sodium silicate and caesium/rubidium formate.
LOH-Max = conversion of
all hard rock and sedimentary hosted lithium mineral concentrates that employ sulphur based chemistry, including
spodumene concentrates to hydroxide from lithium sulphate (without sodium sulphate as a by-productAND uses conventional equipment with lower opex).
You're right about the Phase 1 plant. They plan to ship lepidolite concentrate from Portugal to Sudbury, Canada as there is 2 nickel smelters nearby where they can source sulphuric acid readily/easily rather than trying to transport such a hazardous chemical, well...expensively.
PosLx for SDV and Lepidico's sorcery for JB and MC (they deem it to be opex friendly, more so than PosLx? Is it a quicker and or greener process? I'm betting so). Will be interesting to see how this all plays out as LOH-Max appears to be somewhat an aftermarket fit too, opens plenty of doors especially given cost competitiveness as so claimed. PLS have lepidolite so too does nearby DeGrey's - would they be watching on the sidelines? What about the other WA big spod dogs? You'd imagine so, even if Alvarroes' LOM is 15-20 yrs now (210% resource upgrade yesterday) LPD will want to issue licence deals grinning harder than the joker with each document penned. Interesting thoughts from Thesi, will GXY just buy out the Platypus? Keen to hear from
@airconditioner after the Easter Bunny cuts the ribbon on LPD's Pilot Plant.
Also saw Haplo posted/tweeted
this article, gives more credence to the whole oversupply narrative:
However, the spodumene offtake secured by the company so far - from Australia, Brazil and Canada — will not be enough to feed the new facility. “We need more. We are in very frequent contact with all the major guys."