For the benefit of any others who you might be confusing:
The original goal and core purpose of the industrial-scale pilot plant was essentially to demonstrate Pablo’s chemical process at an adequate scale in order to:
>>> show that the technology could successfully produce BG chemicals with a process and equipment that was a suitable step up from “lab scale” towards “commercial scale”.
This substantially derisked investment in the subsequent phase (the 2ktpa plant) by providing a
“high level of confidence in (the) chemical process technology and construction costs for production scale up”.
It provided confidence in the critical inputs of reagents, energy, etc, required to produce BG from Rincon brine.
It proved the concentrated brine from actual ponds could be processed into a high-quality product with a process and equipment that was far more representative of a commercial operation than any “lab-scale” production could possibly be.
It allowed many tonnes of product to be produced and shipped to potential end-user customers for testing.
Did it eliminate all risks with subsequent scale up? No; it never claimed to and never could.
The fact that there was intent to produce more product from that pilot plant takes nothing away from the above, and in no way shifts the original goal and core purpose of that pilot plant. Some people need to understand key success criteria vs secondary outcomes and benefits. Circumstances, opportunities and plans change.
Did that plan to produce more product from the pilot plant change? Yes it did. So what? Anyone wanting to know precisely why can find out very easily.
Simple.
Passing that off as meaning the pilot plant was a “failure”, is plainly disingenuous imo and fails to recognise or understand the core purpose of that plant.
Were any of those posters around when that plant was being built etc and we were working through developing the chemical process? Not many, if any.
There was a lot of discussion here at that time, including some great “fundamentals” threads, that it seems many would benefit from reading.
They are of course deeply buried under mountains of crap, btw!
Btw:
BG chems were produced from Rincon brine in the lab long ago; and the company made its plans clear from the outset - move straight to an industrial-scale pilot plant to significantly de-risk subsequent investment and development. Prove they could produce high-quality product at a scale far beyond “lab-scale”, and in doing so, build confidence around opex and capex for subsequent development.
It was unconventional, sure, but they never disputed that.
If we had spent all our money on drilling out the resource, a fancy DFS, and simply relying on “lab tests” to convince someone that our technology was successful and that they should throw hundreds of millions at us, we likely - imo - would be just a skeleton crew sitting around waiting for funding, doing nothing but waiting… instead, we have a circa 200-strong workforce who have been busy learning and developing via actual piloting, construction, commissioning, etc.
Fantastic.
When the ducks eventually line up we will hit the ground running.
imo
DYOR
AGY Price at posting:
13.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)