I guess on that note we should try and put to bed right now this issue , and any concerns it may have with respect to the ' Blending ' process.
Because irrespective of this ' Blending ' requirement , the reality is that NAL was ALREADY blending its own low grade material with its higher grade material as evidenced in i low grade stock piles v its higher grade stock piles.
And so the advantages of Sayona having already a 20 MT plus JORC resource standing by was that this particular ore body was a continuous tabular Lithium ore body with ' Consistent ' grade which has since been qualified as passing all the requirements for 6% battery grade.
So it's like having a HUGE high grade consistent blend of ore stockpiled only 20 odd kilometres away ( if you take the short way ) .
And that's a large part of the reason why we WON the BID. Sayona was the ONLY bidder holding this fourth ACE in it's bidding poker hand to complete its four of a kind or full house.
Anyone else would have to have relied on the 42 untested DD holes which show'd there were higher grades - but also which have proven to be located at considerably deeper depth. And what the PIT is now at 270 metres deep or something , but I've read historical geological data from the La Corne area which stated that the Lithium continued to have estimated depths of 850 metres !!. And the reality is that NAL has been JORC'd to Measured , Indicated , and inferred categories to the tune of a massive 101.9 MT @1.06% Li2O. So one has to remember that at the 67% / 33% ratio of blending , that would still leave over 50MT of NAL ore remaining after Authier has long been exhausted. So we're only really HALF way there on NAL production ability and this is why we look and plan our contiguous highly prospective acquisition of lithium properties in the surrounding area like Tansim and potentially others. Pretty smart on their behalf if you look back on their decision to massively upsize Tansim. Now whether this was by design or not as they were NOT the first to go on the Land Grab. It was Vision Lithium who first started it , then others like WR1 , Power Metals , Musk Metals and others have followed. I believe Sayona was around 2nd mover in that regard back then and before the NAL bid went through.
So ALL that aside , this is why that Peter Gauthier fellow from one of our competing bidders Central American Nickel or whatever was ONLY interested in the LOCATION of NAL as a PROCESSOR or other materials he could LOGISTICALLY put through it. And remember one of his statements was ' You can always choose where you build your Pant , but you can't always choose where your Ore bodies lie '. And I now know that by that he meant the highly prolific and historical mining region in and around Val d'Or and the Abitibi region more broadly.
So he himself was thinking he could ' Pull in ' various ores and even tantalum etc.... from the surrounding areas by building out the facility at NAL.
But I'm a little disappointed with myself for even bringing up the Flow Sheet engineering comparisons yesterday because of possibly opening up a can of worms which it looks like it's done.
So let me try and be a little clearer here. The Blending is NORMAL . And the blending is obviously NECESSARY for the consistency of battery grade quality. But the Authier feed-stock blending is ALSO necessary for the continuous FLOW through to the Concentrator without having to involve in additional time to extract the known ores from the NAL mining process. This can now be done in a ' Slower Ramping ' over time. And this can be further evidenced by the confirmed blending ratio of 67% / 33%....so one third roughly.
So this process will also save immediate efficiencies by way of upfront TIME in NOT having to dig around and perhaps go underground chasing those higher grade NAL Ores at depth. We can now set about doing that function overtime when Authier ' Quarry ' Ore comes on line in a much faster and much more cost effective manner from its early excavations of its own PIT which is only under 12 -15 metres of overburden.
But what I was endeavoring to get at yesterday with my observation was that despite looking at the Flow Sheet from the perspective of what we may or may not know or understand about the Chemical Engineering or other Engineering aspects. We still have to .......or someone still has to look at the Flow Sheet from a costing and financial or management accounting ( process accounting ) perspective.
So I guess if we break it down to its simplest understandings - We know that the whole process from Authier available ore feed right through to the dry stacking which they have indicated will be de-watered and moved along through the building of a NEW tailing's filtration plant.
So think of it as an assembly line. What happens in between in say the Chemicals process of Flotation is which is often the governing ' Time Constrained ' part of the process. But what happens at the BEGINNING and intermittently after and at the END of the process , if you altar can also change and reduce the processing time of the ' in between ' function.
So effectively what are they actually doing here is what I was eluding to yesterday. And why are they doing it .
So right at the beginning they mention the ADDITION of an Apron feeder which we don't really know what the capacity is but essentially is used to deliver feed ( at whatever distance ) from various stockpiles into other machinery ( ie primary crusher which is what hey actually say ) .... at a CONTROLLED rate - ie speed. So its is an ' efficiency Material Handling piece of equipment which will effectively enhance the ' Assembly Line ' flow rate . And it will do this right from the start. It will also limit the back and forth capacity constraints of say any alternative options to that of a front l to a Hopper which would be far more time consuming , more costly , and perhaps not without production flow interruptions....which you don't want happening right at the start.
O.K so then they are virtually DOUBLING as well as improving the separation process by up sizing BOTH the sorting capacity ( with the inclusion of the Optical sorter ) ....which I might add is running in PARALLEL ( not series ) to the secondary sorter ...as well as DOUBLING the Magnetic separators by ADDING a wet high -intensity magnetic separator which is running in SERIES ( not parallel ) to that of the Low intensity magnetic separator.
On top of that they are DOUBLING the stack sizer screens which occur POST flotation as well as UP SIZING the PRE Flotation High Density Conditioning Tank.
So the way I see it is if you upgrade the high density tank after doubling the effort on the separation and sorting , you effectively don't need to change the pre- flotation ' rougher ' tank because effectively you've improved the feed already and perhaps even had an impact on reducing the normally expected flotation times.
And this is why you then increase the screening , built a NEW tailing's filtration plant ( to both reuse and recycle the water ) , and get the hell out of there as quick as you can the product to the dry stacking .
So when you think of this as a continuous 24 /7 process , you then start to see the Capacity of the Concentrator lifting and at least improving the ' THROUGHPUT ' times to finished product. And ALL of this whilst concurrently improving and ensuring the Quality of the product.
So its not so much a matter of proving the ' Engineering ' because this part has already been done and decision on lead time items taken.
The issue here is really how much this ' Continuous ' process without interruptions and downtime which might have otherwise had on this operation improve the upper limits of the concentrator nameplate over time.
So my point yesterday was that this was NOT just because of the blending and more a economic and financial case for increasing the concentrator's performance and output.
So it reminds me very much of that old saying from the fifthteenth and sixteenth century's English playwright John Heywood when he said " Rome wasn't Built in a Day " . But many have come after him in critiquing this proverb in suggesting that in order to build something as great and mighty as Rome , it had to be done brick by brick , stone by stone with perhaps a bricks or stones being laid every hour of every day year after year.
So those often forgotten individual bricks whilst not seemingly important at the time and with no great accolades from colleagues and / or shareholders or anyone else ...are indeed very important to building your own mining ' Empire ' .
So as they say you don't necessarily have to do it ALL in one day , you only have to find a way to lay another Brick.
I note John Heywood also coined the phrases " Out of sight out of mind " , Better late than never " , " the more the merrier " , and one of my personal favorites..... " Many hands make light work " .
And ALL of these expressions could be applied in some way to Brett and his Team. Some in a negative way , and others in a more positive way. But even the negative interpretations could be seen as a positive ....because what you often don't see going on right in front of you is not always the case of whats going on behind the scenes.
Anyway long post I know , but at least something to read in helping to stay positive as well as stimulate the right discussions and hopefully the right direction of the discussion.
(20min delay)