Ps. a quick back-of-the-envelope: Mt Cattlin at say 200ktpa spod...

Ps. a quick back-of-the-envelope:

Mt Cattlin at say 200ktpa spod = about 25ktpa LCE
Profit on that much spod is currently about $200M.
Making 25kt of carbonate from brine would need about $8k/t margin to “compete” with the above, in terms of profits to the “miner”. Roughly. Of course there are some differences in the investment required and a slightly different cost per LCE also...
There are some serious margins in brine-based chemicals at these higher product prices if one can get the processing sorted! That is the challenge... it is indeed specialty chemical processing, a far cry from a spod conc operation!

Just some food for thought.