I do appreciate a counter argument and in no way feel you are...

I do appreciate a counter argument and in no way feel you are raining on my parade.

Just to clarify - when you are referencing lithium processing via evaporation or reverse osmosis, this is in regards to lithium extraction from brines. That certainly does happen in places like Chile, Argentina, however I am referencing "hard rock" lithium processing, that is spodumene from pegmatites. This is the predominant source of lithium in WA / Aus. A completely different process for refining.

Lithium is extracted from spodumene concentrates after roasting and acid roasting operations. Roasting is performed at about 1050°C, during which spodumene will go through a phase transformation. It is this part of the flow process that I am highlighting that requires significant energy usage in the form of gas. Hence my tie-in to STX and it's significant gas 2P reserves and 2C resources.

FMG may very well want to pursue only lithium brine assets and therefore "environmentally friendly" extraction via the evaporation or DLE technology however if they decide to invest in WA's world class hard rock lithium deposits (like Tianqi, Albemarle, SQM etc. have done) and they decide to not DSO to China for refining but choose to vertically integrate and process here in WA, then gas requirements will be significant - there is no two ways about this. Just look at what Hancock and MIN (and LTR and WES etc.) are proposing. We are talking multi billion $ capex projects. Any project feasibility study will require securing cheap, plentiful, long-life energy sources... which is why STX is a logical fit for these vertically integrated projects.

Wrt to rare earths, it is also quite a complex flow process for separation and extraction requiring significant acids and chemical reagents. However roasting is still required in the far majority of REM refining, usually hours of roasting in a rotary kiln anywhere from 500C to 1000C in some of the process flows I have seen. FWIW some of the numbers I have seen for total energy input required for roasting 1 tonne of REM is between 6.06 GJ and 9.29 GJ. Gives you some context of the energy use in refining both lithium and REMs.

Hope that helps.