If I can weigh in to this debate... Previous JORC's have been...

If I can weigh in to this debate...

1. Previous JORC's have been conservative not taking into account replenishment rates. They have treated the brine resource as a tank - drain it once, no more brine. Of course, that's not how it works in real life.
2. In addition, the resource is open at depth, meaning we only drilled so far down so that's all a competent person can base the size of the resource on. Again, that's not how it works in real life.
3. Recently publicised discussions with Argentine Government suggests the building of a relationship to facilitate business (what else?). We can join the dots and surmise that may include land acquisition.
4. We also surmise a potential OT partner will want more than just Stage 1 & 2 output. My guess is the establishment of a long term partnership with staged development to build the output capacity to minimum 25 k tonnes per annum. That will need more land.

What do you want JORC or Off-Take ?

...putting all this together, AGY are likely to put forward a development plan that addresses the output bottlenecks as they exist in real life and not as stated in the JORC.

First priority is to up the plant capacity. Building a huge plant takes longer than a smaller plant. I would guess the first priority will be to build something capable of 5,000 tonnes per annum. Building it as a module, and when complete, start work replicating one next door, staging from 5,000 to 10,000 to 15,000 etc. capacity.

While you are doing this, you are also laying out new ponds and buying land.
There's plenty of salar.
Ponds can be built.
The critical elements are Process and Customer.

While a JORC is one of those things that resource companies have to have (says so in the manual), more important is a customer who is working with AGY asking for a development plan and has committed to buying X tonnes/annum of product at Y price per tonne = Annual Revenue.

Makes the math easier.

IMO