The Majority of Retail holders are not across the lithium sector Paul (as evident above) and the high grade low impurity nature of Galans resource & current market conditions very much lends itself towards the Lithium Chloride pathway initially (which very quietly is growing in significance)
The Lithium Chloride Pathway is going to catch alot of people asleep at the wheel IMO
I can already see when Galan drops its DFS in Q1, I suspect a number of Jnr Specy Pump companies are going to make puffy announcements that they are going to follow suit or that their resource lends itself to a similar approach (hoping to piggy back off our success)
If people are unclear about the chloride approach, what the applications of chloride are currently or are going to be over the coming decade, I would highly recommend viewing various pieces of information from both Ganfeng + Livent (I have posted slides from Ganfeng's recent presentation below)
Key Takeaways- Ganfeng is nearing completion of its Mariana Lithium Chloride Brine Project in Argentina (About 2.5hrs North of Hombre Muerto). Stage 1 of the Project will be producing 20Ktpa of High Purity +99% Lithium Chloride per annum. To get from ~30% LiCl to +99% LiCl you need to remove the remaining impurities (of which the #1 is water)
- Ganfeng is targeting 600Ktpa of LCE by 2030, of which the Company is currently aiming for +10% to be Lithium Chloride into Lithium Metal (which I suspect will only grow later this decade)
- Lithium Chloride is Ganfengs ideal feedstock for conversion into Lithium Metal which it intends to utilise as a Solid State Electrolyte i.e. Solid State Batteries of the future
- Current Solid State Batteries are significantly more expensive than Lithium-Ion batteries, one way in which to reduce costs is to substitute Lithium Carbonate out and instead utilise Lithium Chloride (Which Ganfeng will be doing in the very near future), It makes no sense to convert chloride into carbonate back into chloride for conversion into lithium metal, when you can more efficiently go straight from a chloride into lithium metal
- Ganfeng already have a seat at the table with Galan with Raymond sitting on the Board, no doubt he would be advising Galan that Lithium Chloride has a big future when Solid State begins to take off in a few years. Galan will have optionality in 2025 to sell chloride to our direct neighbours to feed into their carbonate plants or to transport it to Ganfeng for conversion into Lithium Metal
Lithium Chloride is the Ideal Precursor = The Electrolyte + Anode of Solid State Batteries
Food for thought
(20min delay)