Every commodity has a cost curve, with low cost and high cost producers. Each cost curve can be broken down into specific segments, with their own low and high cost producers. This applies to Lithium, regardless of the source, i.e. brines, clays, lepidolite, petalite, spodumene, and so on, there are low and high cost producers. Grade is often the go to metric - its easy - but metallurgy, cost environment, and proximity to inputs (labour, energy, reagents) and end markets, are also very important. https://lnkd.in/gWdtc4fp
Soochow Securities Co., Ltd. released its energy metal initiation report in February which included up to date commentary on the Chinese based lepidolite based lithium chemical supply chain, including a cost curve for integrated lepidolite to lithium chemical processors. The report confirms previous industry expert commentary identifying that, as per every raw material source for lithium chemicals, there are several very low cost lepidolite based integrated lithium chemical producers. Pan Asia Metals (ASX:PAM)’s RK Lithium Project has similar grades, is situated in a low cost environment in close proximity to all of its input requirements (labour, energy, reagents) as well as its end markets.
