I for one don't have enough knowledge to be able to adequately analyze this.   I applaud you, okiedo for giving it a shot.   

I was simply speculating the reasons why LAC might want to delay their DFS, which are:

1. Want to rethink product mix to meet market needs (we know this is true because they explicitly said so). This might involve the mix of lithium chemicals produced, or the technical aspects of any cathode material they might want to produce... which is where NNO might come in.
2. May want to rethink their process due to environmental impact. (This is a bit of a stretch.  I doubt this would be the primary reason to partner with someone like NNO, but might factor in.)  It's probably not worth a ton of effort trying to figure out if this might be true.