@w00lfy saw your post this morning but haven't had a chance to...

@w00lfy saw your post this morning but haven't had a chance to get back to it in detail.

In terms of comparing PosLX vs LMax/LOHMax, I don't know that there is a lot of common ground to compare with.

For starters, PosLX is for processing brines, and I believe the main benefit is that it speeds the process up by not waiting for solar evaporation as long. This is both a positive and a negative, as it produces material faster, but nothing is as cheap as leaving pools of water to dry out in the sun. POSCO claim the extra energy costs are offset by speeding up the process, which may be true. I don't know enough about the process to know the rest of the environmental impacts, but that has to be one of the trade-offs.

L-Max meanwhile is obviously for lithium micas, so not applicable to brines. We know there's not much waste, if any, and it has a low energy intensity.

The only real ground where they might overlap is that LOH-Max brings in the possibility of producing lithium hydroxide from brines, but I seriously doubt we're going to see that anytime soon. The LOH-Max announcement mentions "sedimentary deposits" and I'm wondering if that refers to the lithium clays which are being worked on, rather than brines. I know the clays have been using a sulphuric process, which would mean LOH-Max is applicable. PosLX is a phosphate process, so there's no direct relation there.

So, yeah. I don't really see why there would be espionage when POSCO aren't in competition with LPD; they're using a different feed source and a different process to arrive at the same place.

Meanwhile, PLS might very well want to sell some of their lepidolite and/or tailings for a nice boost to profitability.

We shall see.

Cheers