One of the reasons I'm really excited about AGY and I think we are looking at a 10-20+ bagger (don't need to make a new thread, thanks!) is management is hinting at fast tracking production.
I saw a couple things before about this but, it didn't click until I actually invested in AGY.
I've been trying to find more detail but, reading between the lines I think Dr.Carlos Sorentino is already on this. One thing for sure is he and ARG management definitely know about this process.
I'm skeptical about the claims but, it appears to be legit.
This scientific process speeds up the process to get lithium out of the brine from 9 months to 24 hrs to a few weeks. Incredible!
So the first question that popped into my head is why did ORE just spend hundreds of millions on a processing plant and why is GXY talking about spending 300M+ to build a lithium processing plant? You figure Anthony Tse is a smart guy and has the Internet...and would have seen this?
What I'm thinking is the following:
-ORE starting build their plant before this process was out there and it wasn't scientifically accept (maybe it still isn't) and had to built a large scale plant based on the best known science at the time.
-Maybe this process won't work on large volumes such as SDV? Where Mr.Zuvela is thinking if he get's any production out of Salar de Pocitos and Mina Teresa that the market will give AGY the correct valuation to it's peers.
From looking at the specs...I'm not a Geo but this process seems to be patented. Now we could license it. However, from what I know of patents and basic science...if you change the process a bit...it's not under patent protection. At the very least..."what happens in the Lithium Triangle...STAYS in the Lithium Triangle."
Whether or not AGY uses this process or not...it's has incredible assets. If however they can start production in 3-6 months and produce 500-1000 tons. Well this stock will be something really special.
Below are some articles I found.
PLEASE DYOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lithium is a core component in the batteries that could power the cars of the future.Source: The Daily Telegraph NEW lithium extraction technology unveiled by South Korean steelmaker POSCO potentially will transform the global market for the soft white metal, which is used in making lithium-ion batteries for smartphones, iPods and electric vehicles. There are two main lithium extraction methods: either through evaporation from salt-pan brines, sourced mainly from South America’s “lithium triangle” in the Andes mountains straddling Chile, Bolivia and Argentina; or from hard-rock mining at sites such as Talison Lithium’s Greenbushes plant in Western Australia. Evaporative processing is slower but cheaper than hard-rock mining. POSCO revealed late last month its chemical treatment of brine at a pilot plant in South Korea cut processing times from the current average of a year or more using the evaporate method to less than a month. It said a small amount of lithium could be extracted from the brine in as little as eight hours. In addition, it said the lithium recovery rate exceeded 80 per cent, compared with the industry standard of 40 to 50 per cent. Globally, lithium consumption is about 130,000 tonnes a year of lithium carbonate equivalent, with Santiago-based industry consultancy SignumBOX estimating consumption will grow 15 to 20 per cent in 2012 on the back of battery demand. South Korea uses about 13,000 tonnes of lithium a year in its battery industry, but all of this must be imported. US clean technology research company Pike Research said last month the installed cost of lithium-ion batteries will fall by more than a third over the next five years as lithium supply expands and manufacturers become more efficient. Pike estimates the market for lithium-ion batteries for transport – essentially for hybrid and full electric vehicles – will grow from $2 billion in 2011 to almost $15 billion by 2017. Lithium is not scarce – it ranks 23rd on the British Geological Survey’s Supply Risk List of 52 valuable metals – but only a few locations have economic extraction prospects. Lithium carbonate, the lithium compound most commonly used by industry, sells for about $5000 a tonne. POSCO said last week it would use its new technology to build extraction plants overseas in association with lithium producers. On Monday, it announced the first such deal: a memorandum of understanding with lithium explorer, US-listed Li3 Energy Ltd, under which POSCO will build and operate a test facility to recover lithium and other products such as magnesium, calcium, potassium and boron, using its advanced process technology. Under the agreement, POSCO and Li3 will aim to have the test facility running by December this year. The site is yet to be finalised, but the frontrunner is Li3’s Salar (salt pan) de Maricunga project in northern Chile. POSCO already is a strategic partner with Li3, having taken a minority stake in August 2011 under a two-phase investment plan. POSCO also has a stake in Toronto-listed Pan American Lithium Corp., which has exploration interests in Chile. Li3 was one of the brine suppliers to the POSCO pilot plant. Other brine came from Bolivia’s massive Salar de Uyuni, where state-owned Bolivia Mining Corp (Comibol) is keen to develop what may eventually become one of the world’s biggest lithium resources. POSCO and state-owned Korea Resources Corp (KoRes) are potential partners with Comibol in Uyuni, as is the Chinese investment house Citic. While Bolivia’s President Evo Morales wants lithium from Uyuni to be the starting point for a domestic processing capability and eventual manufacture of lithium batteries in Bolivia, the US Department of Energy classifies Bolivia’s lithium as an “uneconomic resource” for the foreseeable future. Bolivia’s Mining Minister Luis Alberto Echazu was on hand for POSCO’s demonstration of its new technology at its Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology (RIST). According to POSCO, its pilot plant can extract 5 kg of lithium from 1000 litres of salt water a day. POSCO, which turns over $55 billion a year as the world’s No. 5 steelmaker behind ArcelorMittal and Chinese producers Hebei Iron & Steel, Baosteel and Wuhan Iron & Steel, has been looking to build new business growth engines. As part of this, it says it plans to commercialise the production of “eco-friendly future materials” such as lithium, titanium and magnesium, and also build an energy infrastructure business. While POSCO’s technology eventually may change the economics of lithium production, for now, the world’s most cost-competitive and productive lithium salt pan is Salar de Atacama in Chile, where Chilean fertiliser and mining group SQM and Frankfurt-based Chemetall are the biggest producers. Adjoining Atacama are the Cauchari and Olaroz salars in Argentina, and across the border is Bolivia’s Uyuni. Talison Lithium is the world’s biggest hard-rock producer, with a mine at Greenbushes in Western Australia. It also has an evaporative project in Chile known as Salares 7 in the Atacama region of Chile. Another Australian industry participant is Galaxy Resources, which mines lithium and tantalum at Mount Cattlin near Ravensthorpe in Western Australia, and this week commissioned its $100 million lithium carbonate processing plant at Jiangsu in China. According to Galaxy, the Jiangsu plant is Asia-Pacific’s largest battery-grade lithium carbonate processing facility with design capacity of 17,000 tonnes, and will help feed China’s growing demand for electric bicycle and vehicle batteries. Galaxy says it has long-term offtake “framework agreements” with 13 Chinese cathode producers, plus Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp, covering 100 per cent of the Jiangsu plant’s capacity. Other companies are seeking to join the lithium supply chain with new processing technology. US start-up Simbol Materials generated a buzz of interest – and some scepticism -- last September when it said it aimed to start work this year on its own lithium extraction plant, using brine from a geothermal plant on California’s Salton Sea.
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