AVZ (ASX) Understanding lithium demand

Originally posted by Scarpa ↑

The calcs are based on achieving 6% spodumene concentrate and I am not sure what you are after. Wasn't essentially looking at a precise calculation for each mine unless it impacts the ultimate LCE need by the market and number of vehicles needed.

Now for PLS there reported DFS grade of ore is 1.26% at a 77.5% recovery rate so 6.2 tonnes of ore * 1.26% * 77.5% = 6% grade spodumene. Obviously if PLS grades are less then they will need more ore feed. PLS has just entered production so I suspect they are not entering 1.26% grade into its ore feed facility in the now but will, I presume, in due course when they get to those types of grades in the pits (orelse investors tehre will get a shock). I expect it to produce 322,600 tonnes from a 2mtpa ore feed operation if it is targeting 6% grade spodumene and can achieve the 1.26% Li20 assumption for ore feed.

In terms of AVZ, I assumed 1.5% Li20 so feed ore was 5 tonnes and assuming a slightly higher recovery rate 80% get 400,000 tonnes of 6% grade spodumene from a 2mtpa facility. If AVZ grade is 1.6% Li20 and they say still want 5 tonnes of feedstock to each spodumene tonne output then they will get a grade of 6.4% spodumene concentrate but still producing 400,000 tonnes of concentrate. But if it wanted 6% grade well the higher content means it would produce an additional 26,000 tonnes of 6% spodumene concentrate than if the grade of ore is 1.5% Li20 content.

If your ore feed grades 1% Li20, well you will need 7.5 tonnes of ore to produce 6% grade spodumene at a 80% recovery rate (assuming 80%to make the maths in my head easy). This translates to 267,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate from a 2 mtpa ore feed operation, well below what I am estimating for AVZ on a consistent 6% basis. If the mine needed 9 tonnes of feed ore to produce 6% grade spodumene I suspect the mine would be very marginal, as ore feed grade would be lower than 1% Li20, and this infact would become a hypothetical within a 2 mtpa facility IMO.

If the question is about well how much can the existing hard rock mines expand, well it will be about grade and cutoff. To be frank I haven't looked at every mine and their resource by grade across the different depth levels, as I am just looking at future LCE need and where the spodumene can come from, but at a high level I have noted the resource levels for some of the players have, and whether infact they are in a position to ramp up capacity at the mine given resource grades is the question etc.

There will be nicities around whether AVZ sell premium products etc but the point of the thread is to essentially show whether AVZ can enter the market, hence why I compare to LCE equivalent (whether 6% spodumene grade or higher grade is produced at the mine when converted to LCE it won't change the numbers of EVs that are required ultimately from the LCE forecasts if they stay the same, but will slightly change the number of vehicles per tonne of spodumene at the minesite itself if you produce a premium product (yes I understand that).

The higher grade AVZ has is why I think at the minesite AVZ cost structures are going to be lower than PLS and virtually every other hard rock player (with probably the only exception been Greenbushes but the AVZ resource is much larger than Greenbushes as you know). For AZ it is about transport costs and whether they can enter the market in a timely fashion.

I guess I will leave it to yourself and others to revise the estimates etc, but I presume you cannot change the actual vehicle forecasts and the current LCE assumption to 2025 unless one assumes growth will be much higher than expected etc etc. Obviously lower grade ore means you produce less 6% grade spodumene concentrate from a fixed ore feed facility, which means such mines have higher expansion costs than say mines with higher garde ore other things equal

IMO but it would be good to see other figures, based on different specifications around the type of production one can do and how they may be placed to enter a market or take market share from others. I'll leave it to others to add to the data, but when I get my head around things I might have a better look a specific company resource plans to see timeframes to resource exhaustion and/or lower output as resource exhausts from a standard 2 mtpa ore feed facility. Will probably need to drink a few VBs when and if I decide to have a go at it.

All IMO

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Yes AVZ have already quoted that worst case scenario is 1:1 strip ratio. This is far better than all the others outside of Greenbushes. I could only find this on Greenbushes where they claim
Waste to Ore ratio:
2.2 :1 (Li only)
1.2:1 (Li&Ta combined)

Having said this mining costs will be greatly lower than others so a huge saving on OPEX pet tonne