General Discussion of AGY, page-18

Sorry Stregazza - I don't know what the nameplate 500tpa is based on. I can understand why it's a fair question to ask, but TBH, and as @perer66 has outlined, the pilot plant is just a stepping stone on the road to commercial production, ie it proves the process works, the consistent quality of the product produced and builds the longer term relationship with Mitsubishi (and other parties).

The sales agreement with Mitsubishi is a very strategic step... it's about demonstrating AGY have a desirable product that's been vetted and approved by a Tier 1 Lithium client. AGY won't be stopping at 100t, they plan to keep going, and Mitsubishi are apparently open to receive as much product as possible.

However, I take your point about why start 24/7 operations. I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect it's more about the staff training and getting things running smoothly and emulating how AGY want to run things in the full scale commercial operations?