On page three of the QUARTERLY ACTIVITIES REPORT AND APPENDIX 5BFOR THE QUARTER ENDING 31 MARCH 2018 it says:
A mine plan was developed that mined the material in 10 years at about 720,000tpa to produce an average of 10,129tpa lithium hydroxide monohydrate.Capital cost was estimated at US$423.6 million. Operating cost was estimated at US$6,561/tonnelithium hydroxide monohydrate after by-product credits. This puts the Wolfsberg project athigher cost than the brine projects of South America but significantly lower cost than the Chineseconvertors buying Australian spodumene. The pre-tax NPV8 is A$441.9 million.
So, what I am reading from this is that while they can't compete with Aussie miners just digging up and flogging the ore to the Chinese, they dig up and truck the ore down the road to a local processor and have it processed, all for about $6500/tonne. Assuming they get something like the current bulk processed lithium (carbonate?) price, being about $16,000/tonne, that's gross profit of $9500/tonne, which seems pretty good to me. The hydroxide price will be considerably higher. Am I missing something basic, and what is a realistic 'stablised' price for lithium post 2022 anyway?
