The curious case of lepidolite in China, is it real?

There is a curious case of lepidolite in China. The report from GS is clearly rubbish and an attack on Australian lithium stocks. Spodumene and brine will continue to be the main sources of lithium. I think that we need all the lithium supplies we can get to make electric cars accessible over the next couple decades. However I think there are some incorrect assumptions on lepidolite made by Cannacord.

The stock head article quotes Reg Spencer saying that lepidolite is lower grade, difficult to process and more expensive to process than spodumene.



It looks like this was true in the past, although the technology to process lepidolite has progressed so it is easy and cost effective to process.

LEPIDICO LTD (LPD) has L-MAX technology that allows the cost effective processing of mica/lepidolite minerals. Their resource grade is an average of 0.43% Li20 but low cost processing puts them on the bottom of the lithium production cost curve. The processing cost of lepidolite to LiOH is US$/t 1,656 which is less than spodumene.

I've also found this through Google about the spodumene, lepidolite and brine in China. It looks like China have several lepdiolite mines running profitably without issues for processing (https://news.metal.com/newscontent/101430427/SMM-survey-of-China%E2%80%99s-Lithium-Industry%E2%80%94Jiangxi/)



Also found this through Google:


I strongly doubt that China has suddenly found enough new lepidolite in the market to flood the market or they would have done so a while ago instead of pushing up the lithium prices. This is likely a coordinated attack along with GS. Although I've found that lepidolite is is a viable source of lithium that can be used to economically produce lithium chemicals.

I've been looking for the GS report without any luck to check what they have based their statements on. Although it looks like there is no publicly available report if it even exists... If anyone knows where to find the GS report it would be good to know!