Good News & Bad News, page-35133

The analysis that is done around supply is very poor. From discovery to production it takes a minimum of 5 years to get a deposit turning out Spodumene. That's if all goes well, there maybe a miner that has done it in quicker time but I don't know of one. Then when it comes to making hydroxide it takes about 5 years from turning dirt to producing. The R@D is working on commissioning plants and the tech in these plants needs lots of work. ( for those with any knowledge the early days of the Bayer process in alumina and chloride process for titanium dioxide- both those took a lot of years to get to where they became reliable). Lithium is in its infancy and those that are producing will pull in the cash. Look at Kemerton and Tianqi to see what their nameplate capacity is and how long it's taken to produce saleable product- both are a long way of nameplate and both producing very little product of quality.