I think I've worked out why the interviewer, Howard Klein, goes...

I think I've worked out why the interviewer, Howard Klein, goes all blushy over Pall Graves: they both take all day to state the obvious but the man from Goldman Sachs wins because he delivers with a Ringo Star accent (and a touch of wascally wabbit thrown in). Indeed, while much of the time Graves is saying not much that is new he does so with aplomb.

Though from what I have heard so far, according to Graves, Mt Cattlin is no good, Olaroz is not much good, Sal de Vida is second best to Livent's nearby project and so is not much good, James Bay is a long way behind Whabouchi so it is not much good, and Naraha is no good. Makes me wonder why Livent bothered. (Ah, that's right, Peter Coleman sold us out for some beads and trinkets and an office suite in New York).

I will call Graves out on his claim that to build exactly the same chemicals plant - and that is assuming to the same construction and technical standards and meeting the same social, environmental and permitting standards - in China is ten times cheaper than in the US. His claim is that what cost $21m in China would cost $200m in the US. I call bullshit on that. I have seen analysis that indicates that building a petrochemical plant in the US costs roughly twice of that in China and I do remember the Koreans saying they can build downstream lithium plants in Korea 40% cheaper than in Australia, so yes, clearly building chemicals plants in China on a like for like basis would probably be much cheaper than in the US. But would it really be an order of magnitude cheaper? I'd be willing to bet it takes a double dose of Goldman Sachs spin-doctoring to come up with that scale of variation in capex.