Ann: Presentation - RIU Explorers Conference February 2019, page-23

Just want to say, that at this point in GLN's journey, I don't think we need to spend too much timing debating the pros and cons of carbonate v hydroxide.

That said though, for anyone just starting their learning lithium learning curve, thought I'd share some of my previous analysis and opinions on this subject (so apologies to those who have read these already).

The carbonate v hydroxide issue basically comes down to spodumene v brine.


Here in Australia, and especially WA, the majority of focus is on traditional mining (ie we understand digging big holes and pulling rocks out of the ground ) - hence there is understandably a bigger focus on spodumene/hydroxide (and the current longer term investment in conversion plants being built in WA).  The resulting flip side to that is the reality that Australia spodumene feedstock is less competitive for carbonate conversion (hence the positive outlook on hydroxide).

So from an economic point of view:
- Brine producers have the cost advantage where it comes to lithium carbonate, and
- Spodumene is more price competitive with respect to hydroxide conversion.
Why? To put it simply, spodumene can be converted directly to hydroxide, where as brine needs to first be converted through a carbonate stage before it can be converted to hydroxide.


However, the disadvantage for WA at this point of time, is that the majority of conversion plants are in China, which is where the bottleneck occurs for conversion from feedstock, be it either carbonate or hydroxide.

Hence, WA is pursuing establishing conversion plants here (Tianqi in Kwinana, and Albemarle in Kemerton)... hydroxide conversion plants due to the underpinning cost advantages of spodumene conversion to hydroxide as opposed to carbonate (these are at various stages of the construction process - and it will be a while yet until these are fully operational...  but that's whole other discussion about issues relating to the construction industry!)

However, when looking beyond WA's spodumene sector, projections for carbonate demand remains economically viable with forecasts for the next several years remaining up to about 80% for cathode lithium requirements as published by Benchmark Mineral in this article (which is a good article summing up lithium supply) https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/lithium-supply-revisited/