minerva, I think there is more than a bit of truth to that. My...

minerva, I think there is more than a bit of truth to that. My take on the ponds is that they are big enough in an average year - maybe even in a slightly worse than average year - but they don't have enough capacity to be ok in, say, 90% of all years. I suspect that they are not far wide of the mark and the head start on stage 2 ponds should provide some relief in the short term and may be enough in the longer term. If not, keep on building ponds...

More harvest pond capacity is a must - they have to be able to take full advantage of the good months/years to build a substantial inventory at the end of the evaporation sequence. There is a slight complication in that they don't want to concentrate much beyond 0.7% or they start precipitating lithium, but I am sure they can think their way through that.

The crystallisers worry me - it feels like a band-aid solution. If they are in low evaporation conditions and the crystallisers enable them to carry on happily with lower concentration in the harvest ponds, I can see them over-pulling the whole pond sequence and getting a little messed up throughout the system. In any case, if they are hell bent on doing it, I hope their test work on the crystallisers is repeated at altitude before they commit several million of capex to this option.