At the risk of being drawn and quartered by the bulls on this thread, I have concerns about the lithium potential at Manindi.
I am not a chemical engineer, metallurgist or geologist, but from what I understand recovering lithium from lepidolite is difficult and expensive. It requires extensive roasting and acid leaching which is a dangerous and costly process, and the economics don't really stack up when doing the processing in Australia.
I am happy to be corrected on this point, but I don't know of any operating lithium mines processing their lepidolite.
Two ASX companies - LPD and LIT - have competing technologies to process lepidolite. Both of these are pre-pilot stage, and LPD opted to build their plant in Canada because it wouldn't be profitable to transport the required ingredients to Aus. As I understand it, LPD are planning to transport concentrate from WA to Canada for processing.
IMO the best outcome for us is that we have a lepidolite resource suitable for either L-Max (LPD) or Sileach (LIT) and we can enter into some sort of JV.
My other "crazy idea" is that MLS and LPD negotiate an exchange of rights of Manindi for Lemare. Lemare is a spod lithium project in Quebec that LPD have earn-in rights for, and are largely ignoring as their focus is the L-Max pilot. Lemare also just happens to be in the general neighborhood of our Lac Rainy and Lac La Motte projects. Manindi is a potential lepidolite resource that could be perfect for L-Max processing, and located in WA (as is LPDs other wholly owned lepidolite project, Moriarty).
