Lithium Related News, page-2340

@Learning_2B1

Welsho and I have been discussing this for a few weeks now and in that time, more and more information comes to the surface about company strategy and intermediaries. Why? As Welsho has mentioned, producing the high grade chemical at the end is not easy. If you can produce the high-grade chemical then that is a MOAT. If you can produce the high grade chemical at lower cost.......that is a company defining MOAT. If you can produce a high grade chemical, at lower cost, and lower C02......Well, you get the picture.

So we know the company has said that the savings of LOH-Max vs traditional approach is US$8M pa OPEX on a 20ktpa plant. That equates to a saving of USD$400/t pa. Assuming OPEX for that final step is USD$1000/t, I'd ball park the figure around USD$600/t.

Then you have CAPEX. So the company has estimated that a P2 plant is $16,900 /t , and $10,500 /t on a by-product basis. That is $338M CAPEX on a 20ktpa plant. Now that CAPEX is concentrator + LMAX frontend + LOH-Max backend.

The CAPEX cost is split 30/70 between concentrator and chemical plant. So that is circa $100M/$238M concentrator/plant.

Given the relatively simple flowsheet of LOH-Max, My guestimate is LOH-Max only would be in the ballpark of 30% of that price, so circa $USD 80M.

So I'd ballpark the number at USD$80M CAPEX, US$600/t OPEX on a 20ktpa LOH-Max only plant