re: rio grande wow weeeee

This report even though dated September seems by its language to predate the aquisition by ADY seems to me. It seems to be part of the DD for the aquisition. Aside from all the important techno stuff and cutting to the chase the meaty points are contained and in my view summarised in the extract of the opening exec summary below taken from the announcement.

"Executive Summary
The production of lithium in the Salar del Rincón requires the selective precipitation of
calcium and magnesium cations that interfere in the recovery of lithium of sufficient quality.
These cations will be precipitated in a two step pre-treatment process:
Mg++ + Ca(OH)2 �� Mg(OH)2 [insoluble] + Ca++
Ca++ + Na2SO4 �� CaSO4 [insoluble] + 2Na+
These pre-treatments require the input of lime that will be produced from limestone quarries
owned by ADY and sodium sulphate from Rio Grande. To produce 15,000 t/y of LiCl will
require approximately 84,000 t/y of sodium sulphate. The estimated commercial cost of this
material will exceed US$114 per tonne (plus freight to site, that is to say, an annual cost of
US $9.6 million. Two aggravating factors are (i) the cost of freight from Buenos Aires to the
plant in Salta, estimated at about US $ 40 per tonne or US $ 3.4 million per year, and (ii) the
international shortage of supply for this commodity.
Sodium sulphate is available in a number of salars in the vicinity of Rincón. This report refers
to the Salar del Río Grande that has been offered for sale to ADY Resources Limited.
The Salar del Río Grande has resources capable of supplying all the requirements for the
production of lithium from Rincón for the foreseeable future.
Located 250 km from Rincón, the Salar del Río Grande is an evaporitic deposit in the
Argentine Puna containing the most significant resource of sodium sulphate in Argentina and
one of the most significant resources in South America. The Salar del Río Grande has yielded
almost all of the domestic production of this commodity over the last 25 years.
The Salar covers a surface of about 110 Km2 and it hosts a 56 Km2 central zone enriched
with sodium sulphate. The area offered to ADY Resources covers 73.68 Km2 equivalent to two
thirds of the Salar’s surface. They include the richest zones of mineralisation. The Salar has
measured, indicated and inferred resources of about 3.8 million tonnes of recoverable
anhydrous sodium sulphate:
Resource
Classification
Average grade,
anhydrous Na2SO4
Mineralised
volume,
thousand m3
Mineral
mass,
Kt
Measured resources 20.4% 4,119 842
Indicated resources 22.2% 3,762 835
Inferred resources 19.7% 10,620 2,092
Total 20.4% 18,501 3,769
In addition, there are a number of groundwater bodies within the Salar that could contribute
an additional 670 Kt of mineral from brines containing an average of 11.8% Na2SO4.
In summary, the Salar del Río Grande has resources capable of supplying all the
requirements for the production of lithium from Rincón for the foreseeable future
(more than 40 years).
The sodium sulphate produced in Rio Grande can be delivered to ADY’s plant at a total cost
not exceeding US$35 per tonne, thus representing a minimum annual saving in excess of US
$ 10.3 million."

If you read this report it has to be read along side the cost savings for ADY referred to in the announcement re the aquisition released to market on 18 September 2007 in the context of the aggravating features referred to above by Sorentino which by its aquisition of Rio grande have been largely avoided.

This is really significant news. The cost savings are not insignificant for the Lithium production for ADY. I had trouble reading it on weblink and other links but it is easy to get on the ASX website for those of you who are having trouble reading it. I kept coming up "file damaged".


Cheers