London South East | The UK's favourite investor portal.

Standard Lithium Koch Strategic Platform US$100M Direct buy in at end of Nov.

https://www.standardlithium.com/investors/news-events/press-releases/detail/105/standard-lithium-completes-us100-million-direct-investment

FREYR Battery has formed a 50:50 joint venture in the United States with Koch Strategic Platforms (KSP) to develop an initial 50 GWh of Gigafactory-scale battery cell manufacturing capacity in the US. So I guess Koch bought in to JV with Freyr US October need supply of lithium so US$100M direct investment ( CUSN / CL went nuts over £18m ).

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/10/20211013-freyrkoch.html

https://m.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/FREYR-BATTERY-124600277/news/FREYR-Battery-to-Accompany-Crown-Prince-of-Norway-on-Official-U-S-Visit-37240902/
Then back in June we follow the path to LITHION BATTERY which Koch S P invest in "We believe Lithion's customizable cell and battery module solutions will be a game changer for industry seeking electrification technology beyond the 'one size fits all' approach. KSP is excited to partner with Lithion and help accelerate their delivery to market," said Jeremy Bezdek, Managing Director for Koch Strategic Platforms.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lithion-announces-equity-partnership-with-koch-strategic-platforms-301321294.html

So within 5 months Koch Specialist Platform have invested in Standard Lithium DIRECTLY, LITHION BAYTERY & FREYR USA BATTERY.

Now the real CHERRY ON THE CAKE ?

FREYR Battery has formed a 50:50 joint venture in the United States with Koch Strategic Platforms (KSP) to develop an initial 50 GWh of Gigafactory-scale battery cell manufacturing capacity in the US based on 24M Technologies (24M) SemiSolid platform technology"

Imho the rock is a big undertaking v a technical challenge for brine.
Rock - you build a whole house, footings, roof. Its the building blocks. It costs a lot and takes a lot of time to put in place.
Brine - Its like a central heating closed system - very simplistic view but its not mining its just processes. Once in it just runs pretty much 24/7.

Cornishk - just a check on the brine pressure? I am much more in to the US side and data does show different flow rates per aquifer. Some do flow at a solid rate without needing much help. New enclosed aquifers are pressure tested and I would guess locations for each pad are chosen with this big cost saving in mind. As vis says "gusher" does describe some flows. If the aquifer is open ended then I guess the pressures will be tested but lower. Had a few oilies with blowout drills due to wrong pipe stage castings blowing out and top blowing too.
One reason why I mentioned earlier the US areas I like have up to 60 years of drilling and to big depths. All this data will be looked at and wells previously used , opened again , assesed , recommissioned and pad site for the modular plant put in place.

Standard Lithium have 3 sites for brines, yet I heard the CEO about supplying the Arkansas basin with the appropriate technology eg selling on the tech to other companies open to a quick start up. As the Arkansas basin has very similar properties it does seem possible to see royalties / fees for outsourcing the tech around the State? Their point not mine.
They also mentioned EU supply from the Southern coasttal ports. 3.5mt PEA is no where near enough to supply LG & Stellantis, so I can guess the plan is the scale up quickly once the demo plant is fully functioning and full plant gets the go ahead. At this point I guess the sales may well kick in, helping fund development.
E3 on the other hand up in Alberta have a sealed massive aquifer with pressure. Initial PEA for processing is 8mt, but that is their base starting level. They have on the most recent presentation 30,000tpa initially. Scale up to 150,000tpa. That is some extra plant work rather than resource as the aquifer is well defined , drilled and studied.

Why go for rock ? Easy tailings pickings. Cinovec cannot use tailings from historic mining. Est 2mt lithium carb in two locations that cannot be used.
The plan there was to mix to a ration from early mining as they widen the entry big enough to take the crusher underground to process extracted rock sub surface. While every lb of rock at cinovec is pay dirt they could create basic flows from the mine and top up using the tailings. That was the plan, now iff the table. I believe CEZ are looking at an Imerys type of process to allow for much more BULK to be baked in one go along with the process of making bulk concrete, so I guess both have similar ideas both being tested to see if they can cope with the tonnage more than anything. This could possible remove 2-3 stages I think I am ri

E3's closed loop system will therefore be constant 24/7 , fully automated process of extraction by volume purely from brines rather than having the extra costs of having to split out other products unless they decide to add extra filtration membranes to capture other metalic ions by metal type. Still on a closed loop 24/7. Rock mica costs will be much higher.
My example was based on mica rock from cinovec.
Their PFS has 0.4% cut off in grade not 0.11%. To create 30,000 tpa of premium lithium hydroxide 160,000 tons of rock have to be extracted and processed via several stages inc possibility of arsenic which the world is trying to cut out. Rock processing is much more inefficient through the whole process thus the cost per ton is around USD$4,000-4,500pt per year. Brines currently are coming in as cheapest top quater costs around USD$1,000 Per ton cheaper.
Trelavour at 0.11% v Cinovec 0.40% would have the cost of 480,000 EXTRA tons per year ( approx 640,000 tons per year of rock ) so aporox £480,000 extra costs just to get to Cinovec production. That is their basic production. DFS is looking at going to 2 , 8 hour shifts so doubling capacity to 60,000 tons of lithium hydroxide per year needing @0.4% grade a total of 320,000 tons of dirt per year.

Brines will wipe the floor on cost efficiencies v mica low grade rock. The australians I know from 2018 laughed at the PEA & PFS. They only consider a cut off of any true lithium mine @ 1.0% not 0.4% or even the embarrassing 0.11%.

Brines are a liquid chemical. It is NOT MINING it is chemical processing. Completely different.
To get lithium basic carbonate to hydroxide will cost new plant at around USD$350-375M just for the hydroxide plant. That excludes all other processing.

Brines will easily win the lithium cost war thus making much bigger margins. If the markets get tight, the high cost rock lithium companies hit the wall first. In 2018 most projects got delayed after the first rush and brines were not in the mix ar the time. That is why we are where we are with lithium shortfalls already. Throw in tin too.

5 - There was a company who DID PRODUCE LITHIUM CARBONATE FOR 7 YEARS - Fira , but due to its infancy and the 2019 lithium price crash had to fold.
The fact is brines have already been viable and made the company money in the first 5 years OF PRODUCTION. There is this ill founded myth that it cannot be done. The data and the company accounts clearly show profit from brine lithium. Do some proper research before looking foolish Fira.

6 - Why would KMX come in for 9m x2 uf they cannot do it ? Why would Bayer support Laxness Standard Lithium to demo stage and 97% RECOVERY if the pilot lav test failed, pilot on ground failed , the lithium chlorine sent from Arkansas to Vancouver to be processed to lithium hydroxide for 6 months and then ship the unit from Canada to Arkansas AND set up a full blown demo plant whilst getting Stellantis buying in , LG ENERGY & Koch inve

Been out most of the day so a lot has been posted.

1 - The brine will be filtered and this clearing of the beads will leave Lithium Carbonate. This then has to be processed to Lithium Hydroxide. There are markets for both but the extra value and current demand is for Hydroxide which increases battery density and most certainly bettery anode cathode material.

2 - Interesting from VIS and many thanks for this detail regarding the beads as the option CL are looking at. From memory there are 3 methods depending on what a company wants / can process from the brines. For other metals each filter will be charged and covered in a membrane which atracts each ion in lithiums case. Zinc , Copper , Silver AND TIN all react differently to the charge and particules for each metal will stick to each surface as expected.

So for example all byproducts if they want can be collected and added as pure metal to the totals.
Now not to get too excited lithium brine is the main target so the extra will be treated almost like the royalties CUSN will get from CL.

3 - As I understand it the pressure at depth is so good it should pretty much flow under pressure. There is the drill cost , maintenance cost and servicing but cost should be minimal.
The cost on brines is processing each metal. To get lithium carbonate to hydroxide premium takes the most in energy costs by far for the total operation. Tin, copper, zinc and silver have their own melting points but should be pretty pure as its ionic exchange. Having said that a cost of £3500 per ton v USD$25,000 per ton shows the profit margin less tax too.

4 - Fira please forgive me. CL are the lithium company NOT CUSN who have % interest in CL and royalties.
Tin will be a huge earner for CUSN. However, if you are happy to ignore CL and what they will generate for CUSN then you are the fool. I did quote imho opinion and not fact but a generalised estimate to what I hoped production in tonnage 'MAY' be. My workings were clear and straight forward. I have nothing to be gained as the people in Canada are driving the price here and not me as a very little investor in a big big big pond. My views are just that a view.

I estimated £4.2m in Royalties from CL to CUSN per year.

I ESTIMATED / GUESSED - take it or leave it I don't really care - I estimated Revenues towards £4 Billion over the life of the project from LITHIUM BRINE ONLY.
I EXCLUDE ROCK MICA as I feel the grades of cut off are far too low to actually produce the tonnage of solid rock at 0.11% per ton of rock extracted. The process of very very low grade rock means so much more needs to be extracted I just can't see it being worth it currently. My view may change depending on how the tailings are used ? My assumption is they will have to use them with mica production to get to lithium carbonate processed basic. From then both the brine and rock mica can be mixed and lithium hydroxide created at this point from BOTH sources ?
E3 have a close

Hi vis, good advice but I kind of like historic data from wells drilled or tunnels mined to already show clear indications over multiple wells and area. One reason why I asked cornishk about how much more drilling to prove up a new site for mine ready DFS other than S Crofty.
As you know I have been looking quite a lot at brines over the last 18 months or more. Bought Standard at $1.40 and I tipped it at around $2.50 at the start of 2021. Tyson can validate that along with NEL & DCTA.

I am buying E3 all the way down at the moment as they have extremely large 60 year data sets on oil & gas wells drilled. The majority of fluid from the Le Duc aquifer came out as byproduct lithium infused brines rather than the oil & gas the majors really wanted. The whole acreage has deep drills capped so they will know all the data regarding each well and best grade from which well. Quickens things up and provides a bunch of test batches which they can fine tune the Li-lX filter tech to for lithium ion capture. As we have discussed each brine is slighty different. This is a huge sealed aquuifer so brine changes at depths rather than width in the most. At 150,000 acres its not hard to be in the central part of the aquifer, to set up the pads, holding tanks and processing units. Basically the system shown to me is modular so depending on demand, more tanks just connect up.
Infrastructure looks established. Gas power from local power station will be provided at a competitive rate along with heat exchangers from the warm brines, solar and I believe hydrogen back up.
With 8m t lithium carbonate already in the PEA it is already twice the size of Standard Lithium and in PEA size about the same if not bigger than Europes largest lithium mine in Cinovec. At less than a pound a share I see value already backed up with 60 years of extraction data. The area is brownfield in that its been drilled so much by the oil & gas industry getting permits should be straight forward and its just fields for miles and miles no major towns too close.
In Jan the step from pilot lab testing to infield pilot then demo plant by Q4 22 is not a long time to wait.

Standard Lithium went from pilot in lab $1.50 to functioning demo plant and $15.00. That is the value I see.

Both Standard Lithium and E3 have easy access to expand. Both in lithium short safe duristriction countries and near demand.

Standard Lithium have Bayer Chemicals , Koch Industrials , Stellantis and LG as supply buyers. I am comfortable with that.

E3 lost Livent who turned diwn the options, like Albamerle , not interested in brines ( VW today may have turned their heads ) so if/when E3 get a partner it should fly. Very much like a tin offtake for CUSN.

Happy with my current positions and will wait to hopefully get chance of cheaper shares in CL here as part of any finance deal. If not I have the tin and copper here based in the UK and we need it.

Also I hold SYA on ASX. They just bought a produc

Latest Share Chat

Member Info for MajorOak

Followers

Following

Posts (Last 30 Days)

Posts (All Time)

Last Post

Member Since

Share Chat Post Distribution (Last 30 Days)

Activity Log (Last 30 Days)

Latest Share Chat

Member Info for MajorOak

Followers

Following

Posts (Last 30 Days)

Posts (All Time)

Last Post

Member Since

Share Chat Post Distribution (Last 30 Days)

Activity Log (Last 30 Days)

Please enter at least 2 characters

No results found

Search results

Recently viewed

Trending