Whenever a company can show it can do “lithium hydroxide” it’s...

Whenever a company can show it can do “lithium hydroxide” it’s like, they’ve made it to the end of the yellow brick road, utopia.

I generally trust Mr Scarpa’s interpretations of processes. Sometimes he is quite a gentleman. So it’s important to penetrate deeper where doubts remain...

Utopia it is, because consider that non-homogenous well below Greenbushes benchmark for battery grade SC6 resource companies (almost all of them excluding Greenbushes) have yet to make this LiOH unicorn stand up let alone canter or gallop.....

So for KDR to claim LiOH plant, when it has hardly done comminution and beneficiation on an industrial scale with its resources, and with no precedent is a glaring question to my eyes.

Yes with sufficient low capex and opex an SC6 for further refining into a derivative is possible, we can see that but at the industrial level and with significant ore variability difficult to conjure with sample grades for largely academic ends, no really commercial insight, then, there are considerable risks to overcome.

That’s why homogeneous massive pegamtites provide more certainty. Albeit, even Greenbushes conducts testing and adjustment of flotation chemicals for consistency and character of product. Hence why Lowry pointed out its not an ordinary commodity but a chemicals biz.

So the starting points for end products is not to be overlooked here, as even a full flotation does not guarantee consistency of characteristics for a battery grade product.

I quote Tianqi lithium Australia :

“—The devil is in the detail when it comes to impurities and the Greenbushes spodumene clearly has a leading advantage when it comes to impurities versus all the other WA and global spodumene producers. The quality of spodumene(grade and impurities) impacts the conversion process and quality of lithium chemicals that can be produced following the conversion process.

The Greenbushes spod has a leading reputation in the market as being consistently the highest grade with the lowest number of impurities (including iron).

To maximise lithium recoveries and ensure optimised costs of production, conversion plants should be designed based on the spod feedstock. Converters who flip and flop between spod feedstocks will ultimately get themselves in trouble sooner or later.

Being vertically integrated is key to success in this game.—“

My point is “devil in the detail” is applicable here because of ore variability, the processing of it, to consistently feed conversion at commercial scale for battery market, is all untested, remains a hypothetical.

And it’s the hypothetical with vertical integration that enchants. But who should take the risk, who pays for it?

Perhaps when lithium prices sustain higher prices, just as China’s processors will process low quality SC if the price indicates a margin for them.