Good News & Bad News, page-34557

Apologies if this has already been posted, but in the light of the experience of that other mob at Kwinana with their converter I am mightily relieved that Dale is fully appreciative of the high cost of down-streaming in Australia
From AFR Oct 12, 2023 https://www.copyright link/markets/equity-markets/pilbara-minerals-boss-says-it-cannot-compete-with-chinese-refiners-20231012-p5ebph
Australia’s largest lithium miners have no chance of moving into more profitable parts of the battery supply chain without substantial government subsidies, according to Dale Henderson, the chief executive of $12.3 billion lithium producer Pilbara Minerals.
Speaking at the Citi investment conference on Thursday, Mr Henderson said a West Australian miner like Pilbara Minerals could not compete with China’s low-cost minerals processing capacity at industrial facilities.
“To be frank, it’s hard to make Australia work given the cost base particularly in the Pilbara region – the labour, construction, and energy costs are high,” said Mr Henderson. “So the first principles case makes it very difficult to justify the investment without more government support if Australia wants to deliver on the ambition of onshoring the value-added processing.”

IMHO we (the company) should wait to see how profitable the Posco converter is before considering any more JVs. It seems to me that an oversupply of converters can be built, but that the supply of spodumene will be limited for many years, so that we should concentrate on increasing spodume production.
Cantankerous James