WC8 high grade assays are 1-1.1% while AZS are about 1.4 to 1.5%...

WC8 high grade assays are 1-1.1% while AZS are about 1.4 to 1.5% - a big difference. AZS has lots of grades around 1.4% to over 1.5% and very few below 1% while WC8 has very few above 1.1% and heaps below 0.9%. A very big difference - go and look at the detail assays in the back of each announcement not just the highlights in the exec summary.

An illustration - if one deposit has a grade of 1.35% (BP has this grade for AZS and LRS has a grade around this level) and the other has 0.9% (I have seen views that this will be WC8 grade). If both have much the same recoveries and processing then they both will have similar costs ie ASIC but revenue for the first one will be 50% more than the later as for every dollar of cost they will produce 1.5 times the amount of lithium. That makes a massive difference to the NPV and IRR - the NPV and IRR for the former could be easily 5 times and maybe even 10 times the latter for a sensible long term lithium price. The first will be able to still make a profit through poor metal prices while the other will need to stop production to stop losing money.

Its simple maths or should I say arithmetic.

Being near a port, etc only reduces cost to a certain extent but does not address low grade.