Lithium & The Future, page-5579

You are absolutely right.
However trying to interpret the meaning of an article without knowing the details of the subject is making it difficult for some.
Often media articles are written in a hurry or can be quite vague. If you have read the announcements by companies involved etc it makes the whole situation much less opaque.
The example of the POSCO JV in Chile is a good one to look at:
Given POSCO's ambitions to convert raw materials to Lithium Chemicals in South Korea and more recently Argentina, it would be a normal reaction for an onlooker to assume they were considering converting Lithium Carbonate into Lithium Hydroxide at the POSCO Samsung SDI JV in Chile.
This however was not the case as the JV was further downstream at the Cathode production level and in that instance POSCO was relying on Albemarle to supply Lithium Hydroxide. When negotiations broke down between Alb and the POSCO Samsung SDI JV because Alb was unwilling to diversify into LiOH production within Chile to supply the JV, POSCO walked away.
Reading a couple of news articles could have made that difficult to understand given POSCOs Lithium Chemical production ambitions elsewhere.
The defining factor was POSCO has developed it's own unique technology to give it an advantage to process from raw materials but that part off their tech cannot be applied to already produced Li2CO3. Yes, POSCO could have chosen to build a converter using commercially available tech to process the Li2CO3 into LiOH but the Capex would have been significant and the Opex would have reduced the incentive to produce Cathodes in Chile. After all, they were relying upon the assumption that they would be provided heavily discounted LiOH from Albemarle.
Albemarle itself didn't want to go to that expense and their agreement with the government did not specify the type of Li Chemicals it was required to provide, just the percentage of their production output.
This is why it is often necessary to have a greater knowledge of the companies involved and their plans than can be gained in a 5 paragraph news article.
I have tried to provide clarity on a broad level but some of the specifics being requested required countless hours of research and in some cases is very hard to come by.
I do my best but cannot be expected to give away that detailed information to help another poster understand some news articles.