Sounds like they are very, very early in their development.  They are obviusly another company working on reducing the amount of acid required for the acid leaching step of lithium clay processing and intent also on reduction of the total amount of water required in processing lithium clay as exampled in their statements about recycling the processing water... something, it appears, that everyone else is working on also... spurred on by the fact that all 5 of the listed lithium clay projects are in desert areas where water is as valuable as gold.

Some interesting notes from their PR:  

"There are 5 known lithium clay projects that are advancing toward potential commercial production."

These 5 "known lithium clay projects" would be, as noted in the Contents of this document:

1.  Cypress Development, Clayton Valley Lithium (Esmeralda County, Nevada)

2.  Noram Ventures, Zeuz Claims  ( another Canadian based company that has lithium clay claims also located in Clayton Valley, Esmeralda County, Nevada)

3.  Ioneer Limited, Ryolite Ridge  (an Australian company.  Ryolite Ridge is in Esmeralda County, Nevada and is approximately 25 Kilometers West of the lithium brine Silver Peak Mine that is owned by Albemarle)

4.  Bacanora Lithium, Sonora Project in Sonora State of Northern Mexico.   In October 2019, Ganfeng Lithium became a 29.9% shareholder in Bacanora, a 22.5% shareholder at the Sonora project level, and signed a 50% lithium off-take agreement.

5.  Lithium Americas, Thacker Pass Project in Humboldt County, Nevada

In regards to Cypress Development, it's PFS of May 2020 had some interesting comments about "potential risks at this stage of the project":

The potential risks at this stage of the project are: • Recovery of lithium from the project was not proven at a commercial scale. Further testing in a pilot plant is needed. • Production is potentially limited by the availability and cost of sulfur and its transportation. • The project is most sensitive to lithium market prices which are currently dependent on the demand for lithium batteries in electric vehicles and energy storage. • A source of makeup water has not been secured. Options to obtain water through rights acquisition, purchase or other agreements should be pursued. • Environmental permitting is subject to presence of flora, fauna or other conditions which are yet to be determined.

It sounds on the surface that LAC's Thacker Pass is way, way ahead of where Cypress Development is at this time, however, confirmation of that supposition would be more secure if we had all the information from the "soon to be released" ( we hope! ) Thacker Pass DFS.  The PFS and data since then make it sound like LAC is way ahead in regard to water manatement and EIS considerations as opposed to where Cypress Development is... but to confirm that supposition we need to look at that DFS for Thacker Pass!

Noram also seems to be considerably more in its infancy relative to developments at Thacker Pass.

Page 12 of the Noram Presentation in the following link gives an outdated, but still useful, comparison of the 5 lithium clay companies that is worth taking a look at:

https://www.noramventures.com/site/assets/files/3755/1_-_noram_presentation_2020-04.pdf

Ioneer Limited, plans to convert all of its lithium production to Lithium Hydroxide, however this is not scheduled to occur until year 4.. so they are a ways out by that schedule in regard to full production of lithium hydroxide.  They don't even start to build their conversion plant for Lithium Carbonate to Lithium Hydroxide until Year 3. 

 Ioneer does have a completed DFS, so they are ahead of LAC's Thacker Pass in that regard:

https://www.ioneer.com/files/files/300420-DFS-Executive-Summary-METRIC_Final.pdf

Ryolite Ridge for Ioneer in Esmeralda County, Nevada has a construction schedule per their DFS that is similar to that of Thacker Pass in that completion and start of production is estimated to be in Q2 of 2023:

"The project schedule has a total duration of 41 months from commencement of the EPCM phase to final completion, with first product shipment in 2Q 2023. The construction phase of the schedule from site mobilization to first production is 25 months."

Bacanora seems on schedule to start production at their Sonora project about the same time at Thacker Pass, sometime in 2023. It sounds like Bacanora has a similar problem to that of LAC and Thacker Pass, more financing is needed.

"Bacanora also said the project review by strategic partner Ganfeng Lithium is now scheduled for the third quarter of the year. Previously it was expected to be completed in the first six months of 2020.

Bacanora now expects to kick off site works in the first half of 2021. This would allow the miner to begin lithium deliveries to its offtake partners, Ganfeng Lithium and Hanwa Corp, in 2023.

The company, however, has yet to secure full financing for construction of project, which is expected to produce 35,000 tonnes of lithium per year."

The above summary is intended to just give a bare bones info about LAC's competitors in the field of trying to get a lithium clay source mine up and into operation.  Consult the individual company web pages and other sources for mor detailed information.