One issue with this table at first glance is Firefinch sees a 23 LOM, however they only have a plan for first 4-5 years. What happens after that for recoveries is not stated.
My view is based on company data from the DFS that they plan a 2.3 million tonnes mine throughput and the proven ore reserves is about 8 million tonnes. Whereas AVZ has about 44 million tonnes proven ore reserves.
On that JORC category basis, there is a clear and deliberate obfuscation in this table because Proven ore reserves as the JORC code classifying states is a higher level of confidence than probable. FFX’s probable outweighs greatly proven. That is this is looking like apples and Oranges. Not what the table author wishes to claim.
Looking at scale and scope, FFX has only a 5 year plan which looks to be in length with proven ore reserves? Otherwise why not a longer tabulation on the DFS?
AVZ is comparably much longer 20 years because the geology is largely homogenous. It can demonstrate scale and longevity clearly. It’s why geologist Brendan Borg loves that resource even as he promoted FFX’s.
one other aspect worth reconsidering, is recovery rate differs also due to cut off grade. AVZ 0.5% and FFX 0.0% have different cut off grades, and there’s a different process planned as reason for different cut off grades and add to that ‘strip ratio’ becomes very important as well. I don’t see strip ratios in this table and its a very important data point for learning the nature of mining to happen. It is a key reason why AVZ can do a DMS recovery alone as the throughout per day can still be high, that is recovery rate doesn’t matter so much with a Resource like that because the end result is a premium SC6 “6.3” in any case. Where is in this table, the SC%, grade, impurities, grind size and moisture?
Ok recovery rate, though AVZ plans DMS only and recovery rate is deemed lower than FFX, the strip ratio, that is extraction before feeding into the mill tells another story, that FFX has a lot more work to do on the stripping away and extraction side and, then there’s a chosen a cut off grade of 0% for FFX with a comparably tiny grind size to recover all lithium oxide material.
the other point is, FFX dialled in extreme cut off points and grind size (compared to other hard rock lithium projects) to facilitate lithium sulphate production- The scoping study for this lithium sulphate has not emerged with the DFS. So the question is can it really ship such a tiny grind size product to a market out there? as no one else to my knowledge attempts this as a product per se for battery grade SC6? Is this DFS sabotaged by the matters yet to be published with lithium sulphate production?
please recall the previous studies that Honestly declared metallurgical issues with the spodumene. All the extremes here dialled in here; no cut off grade, no DMS, tiny grind size are about eliminating SC6 battery grade achievability issues and maximizing revenue by integrating a refinement beyond SC6. And refinement results has not been delivered in a scoping study with the DFS. The DFS is incomplete in my view without that scoping study because that scoping study was all about validating the process FFX planned.
(the grind size was about kiln firing for lithium sulphate production not as an end in itself to customers is what I recall with the previous manager.)
the bottom line is FFX has a small proven ore reserves even compared to PLS with 22mt in 2018, does this mean financiers need more indications of true potential?
(20min delay)