Ann: Orocobre Limited - September 2018 Quarterly Report, page-64

This is correct and eventually we will achieve > 17.5TPa but it will be via increased pond capacity marketed as stage 2 ponds which are really Stage 1 hindsight. The good news is that they seem confident that increasing pond capacity is all that is required. By changing the grade mix to have 25,000 tonnes of primary grade lithium which doesn't run through the purification circuit for stage 2 it also hides the increase in ponds which are really to correct the stage 1 production model. Stage 2 is really just an extension of stage 1 anyway. It is not like a separate project/location it is just increasing the capacity of the original stage 1 system. My guess is ~$10m of Stage 2 ponds should really be seen as stage 1 ponds if you are a purist and consider that any costs associated with achieving  the first 17.5TPa is stage 1. The additional crystalisers are also technically for stage 1 as the crystalisers are for the purificaton(battery grade) circuit and Stage 1 was supposedly 17.5TPa battery grade capacity. The stage 2  expansion is technically only 25,000T of Lithium Carbonate which doesn't  go through purification circuit and 10,000T of this to go to the hydroxide plant for value adding. Wish they had swollowed their pride years ago and started building the Stage 1 hindsight ponds, but suspect there is a bit more to it than this and they still haven't got the system fully understood.