This is what frustrates me about Galan - the lack of clear messaging. Both HotCopper and Twitter users are adamant that Galan are not doing a carbonate plant and will go down the chloride route only, thus lower capex, etc.
However if I look through the announcements there are far more references to carbonate than to chloride. For example, the 2 November 2022 pilot plant clearly states
"along with the additional 120 Ha of evaporation ponds, the scaled up pilot plant application includes reagents treatment area, administration and warehouse facilities, laboratory, power supply (including solar plant) and the original small pilot facility to trial production of lithium carbonate". In the most recent April 2023 investor presentation it also references carbonate and the carbonate pricing, because that's what all the HMW studies have been based on.
Some great comments in there as always Hoopz, but same comments above for you. It is clear from the piece in italics above that Galan have more to worry about than just some pipes and ponds. This is still a complex operation, even for a pilot plant.
As for a carbonate plant being off the menu, this also contradicts the Macquarie broker note from 13 January 2023 which Galan promote on their website. Here's the link:
GalanLithiumglnAu-LeveragingTheResourceBase20230112.pdf. This clearly states
"A definitive feasibility study (DFS) assessing the potential to develop a full-scale lithium carbonate project is underway, which we expect to result in a larger scale development that was outlined in the Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) released in 2021." Read that bit in bold carefully and think about the implications. This note then goes on to say that the pilot plant will produce
"only a lithium chloride concentrate and we believe that GLN will also assess the potential for the full scale DFS to produce lithium chloride concentrate in the early phases of the larger project".This note also sees two capital raises (which they estimate at around the 90c mark). The first would be A$50M for the development of the pilot plant, and I agree - they don't have the cash reserves to get this done and I think people pretending they will get debt funding for this amount are dreaming. The second is A$300M as part of overall US$600M capex for the full project. So these guys are pretty clear on a) a full carbonate plant and b) large capex - but HotCopper and Twitter think otherwise. The original HMW PEA had capex at US$439M and Macquarie see this increasing 37% to around US$600M. At current ROE's that's A$892.5M.
Like I said, prepare yourselves...
(20min delay)