While I haven't done extensive research into DLE, from what I've...

While I haven't done extensive research into DLE, from what I've read its primarily applicable to brines. DLE's huge potential value is stranded brines that exist in higher rainfall areas that don't suit evaporation ponds. LKE is proposing 25kt of annual LCE capacity for a capital cost of US$1.376b or roughly A$80/m per kt of LCE capacity. If LPM were thinking of even 20ktpa LCE capacity and had a DLE plant at that cost point it would be a capital cost of A$1.6b. Speculatively, DLE may have merit when dealing with flotation slimes (material too small to use for flotation) but this again is irrelevant to LPM if they are planning to ship something like a 10mm product (slimes are fractions of mm). I don't believe LPM need or reliant on DLE but if they were, their business case would be incredibly shaky because in all likelihood they wouldn't have the capital to pilot test a DLE solution before going bankrupt.

Ore concentrators using optical/UV technologies can be a useful pre-screening tool to assist a higher feed grade. Their three most commercial applications in the lithium space relate to concentrating lower grade material, enabling the mining of thinner seams and removing darker high iron ore pre-concentration. An open pit operation with thinner seams may choose to mine all the seam and some of the material either side of the seam. They then use an ore sorter to get rid of frequently dark/black mafic and keep the lighter/green/white pegmatite. There may also be areas of ore with low grades that would be tailings in the absence of an ore screener. Its correct they can be of value but their value-add in the context of LPM is limited. LPM already has a higher grade deposit (4.1Mt @ 1.43% with a lower 0.5% cutoff). Some back-of-hand calc's indicate UG mining low grade material to put through an optical/UV concentrator to then truck/ship a 1.5%-2.5% DSO product isn't going to work in anything but high to very high Spod price environments. LPM hasn't indicated their grade-tonnage curve but I suspect the contained LCE volumes would not increase much through a further reduction in the 0.5% cut-off and even with an ore screener the economic cut-off would remain close to 0.5%. I suspect LPM's actual plan will be to mine out any areas of high grade and leave the low grade where it is UG and it may even be the cut-off is increased so that the average grade mined is higher.

LPM has among, if not the least sustainable business model of any Australian lithium proposed producer. Lets assume the UV ore concentrator delivers a 2.153% Li₂O grade and note the Li to Li₂O conversion ratio is 2.153x. This ore is 1% Li and 99% waste material. Shipping 99% waste across to China for further purification has horrible green credentials, its even worse than shipping ~SC5. It is correct that LPM itself would have limited energy use in its operations because its simply shipping a product to China where China then supplies the energy for further processing. While China's energy mix is improving there's a decent chance its less green than Darwin's Grid (if LPM were to connect to the Darwin Grid) so transferring that processing to China is net negative for world climate considerations. LPM as a DSO operation is going to struggle to press the "green" buttons. There might be profits, but not green profits.

LPM has a resource of 4.1Mt and the Finniss area is scattered with small deposits with a few mid-sized one's. PLS has a 414Mt resource (100x larger). Unless LPM management are idiots and mining all the worst prospects first, they aren't even close to material closing this relative size difference.