Will we wait, 2 things- one small, yet far from insignificant, and one perhaps not so small.
1) Something I don't recall being noted here previously is that Gary Johnson and his metallurgical team upgraded our pilot plant's circuits from 15 kg/hr to 30 kg/hr, rather than the targeted 25 kg/hr upgrade mentioned in our 30 June quarterly.
Did SM also fine tune the concentrator? The same quarterly expected our 22 tonnes of stored ore to produce 6 tonnes of concentrate, however our last quarterly informed it produced 8 tonnes, an impressive increase in feed stock.
Furthermore, our DFS (in the table on page 6) gave a value of 3.23% to "Lithium grade of concentrate," whereas our 30 September quarterly estimated a grade of 3.7% Li2O. Hats off to Strategic Metallurgy for all 3 improved efficiencies.
2)@sqe using your "molar mass and extraction efficiency" method to calculate our LCE production from concentrate would definitely require your assistance haha, therefore using your ratio method:
If 57,000 tonnes per annum of concentrate results in 4,850 tpa LiOH, its estimated weight in freight transported annually is 11.75 times greater, yes?
In 2 separate conversations over the last month or two with @RTFQ and @In4apenny, I was hoping we could decipher a cryptic clue Joe gave us in our July "low emissions intensity" announcement, but I hadn't laid my hands on the crucial transport emissions estimates to complete the calculations. Apologies to both of you for letting the topic drop. Please lob in with your opinions. That goes of course to anyone else out there reading this.
An IPCC report gave a baseline emissions estimate for "stock average international ships" of 10-40 gCO2/t-km vs a stock average for "diesel fuelled HDVs" (heavy duty trucks) of 76-178 gCO2/t-km (from the tables on pages 627-628, or pages 29-30 of Chapter 8).
Heavy vehicle emissions are 7.6 times greater than shipping emissions based on the low estimates above for both trucks and ships. They are 4.45 times greater than the high estimates, averaging out to a midpoint of 6.0 x higher emissions for HDV over sea freight.
In the third paragraph on page 2 of our 22 July announcement, management gave us GHD's transport Scope 3 estimates:
Preliminary Scope 3 estimates for emissions from transport of concentrate from Namibia to UAE and transport of products and by-products are only 6,732 and 2,507 tCO2-e respectively.
Walvis Bay, Namibia to Port Dubai, UAE is 6,180 nautical miles. 1 nautical mile = 1.852 km, therefore the distance our concentrate travels by ship is 11,445 kilometres.
On an annual basis, based on our DFS figures you provided above, our concentrate weighs 11.75 times more than our LiOH product.
At present, there does not appear to be a rail transport option between the UAE and Europe, therefore unless our end product is travelling by ship to an undisclosed consumer, I am assuming our LiOH and (non-bulk) by-products will be transported by HDV via road, if going to Europe.
Google Maps provides a distance of 6,100 km between KIZAD and Schwarzheide, Germany where BASF are building their new CAM plant.
The emissions for the transport of our concentrate is 2.685 times (6,732 tCO2-e) more than for the transport of our LiOH (2,507 tCO2-e), therefore if the concentrate tonnage is 11.75 greater than the LiOH, but has 6 times more efficient freight emissions, it stands to reason our LiOH and caesium/rubidium are going to Europe, possibly to Germany.
6,732 tCO2-e ÷ 11.75 x 6.0 = 3,437 tCO2-e
Whilst this unsatisfyingly is not the 2,507 tCO2-e GHD estimated for the transport of our "products and by-products" to our offtaker, clearly our management know where our end products are going (as of the 22 July 2021 announcement) if GHD are able to calculate estimates. From the announcement, page 2:
The assessment includes: ... transport of the concentrates from Namibia to UAE by sea ... and transport of the final products to end users. The GHG assessment is based on Lepidico provided data and reasonable assumptions made.
Not having access to GHD's figures, we don't know:
their calculations for our by-products based on their weight, as we have for LiOH in our DFS.
the Scope 3 savings from our by-products ("GHD has advised that Scope 3 emissions should be industry competitive due to savings from by-products.")
GHD's baseline "stock average" emissions for both international container vessels or heavy duty, long-haul trucks. The IPCC report I used is from 2018, so would be calculating off older, less efficient transport. Additionally, this report appears to be a reworked version on an earlier one, as the majority of sources quoted are from the beginning of the previous decade (2010-2012). One would hope they used updated 2018 figures for their emissions estimates, as the fuel efficiency and design of vehicles improve on earlier models, but I couldn't find the source of footnote [25] to their table. At any rate, I assume GHD's 2021 estimates provide for greater efficiency than the IPCC's 2018 estimates.
the accuracy of my rough averaging of IPCC's broad transport estimates.
Adjusting the above calculation of 3,437 tCO2-e down to accomodate 1) Scope 3 savings from our by-products and 2) GHD's updated transport estimates using a more modern, fuel efficient HDV fleet, could possibly account for the discrepancy between it and GHD's 2,507 tCO2-e.
No doubt you will make more sense of my muddled attempts above. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. This has niggled at me since our 22 July announcement. I have a few more things to share on the subject of both offtake and finance, but I have to see a man about a dog now, so will be back later. Thank you kindly for your assistance.
haha, therefore using your ratio method:
(20min delay)