As an investor in both Albemarle and IGO, I don't really...

As an investor in both Albemarle and IGO, I don't really understand why so many here are so negative on hard rock Lithium mining. Albemarle has a very large brine operation in Chile, in addition to its 49% stake in Greenbushes. On prior investor calls, Albemarle has discussed the relative merits of both alternatives. Brine has a cost advantage when the end product is Lithium Carbonate, but Spodumene (hard rock) has the cost advantage when Lithium Hydroxide is the desired end product as it can be produced directly from Spodumene. On the other hand, in order to get Lithium Hydroxide from brine the cost of an additional step is required to convert Lithium Carbonate to Lithium Hydroxide.

And by the way, Albemarle has also been clear that future advanced battery technologies, such as Solid State for example, are going to rely much more on Hydroxide than Carbonate. So enjoy the rewards of owing a piece of the lowest cost Lithium Hydroxide resource in the world!

This presentation that Albemarle put out shortly after the Tesla battery day that also called into question the merits of production from clay has a few high level slides on Lithium processing and the anticipated Lithium usage in advanced batteries: Albemarle Lithium Investor Teach-In