The last 10 minutes of the podcast is fluff but the first 31 minutes are somewhat enlightening, and I think worth a listen. I’ll offer my thoughts on what stood out to me and as always, I encourage corrections or additions.

There’s no surprise that he confirmed the recently announced Phase 1 target of 30-40k tpa as opposed to the 30k originally proposed.

He summarized that they are waiting for three major state permits, involving water, air quality and land reclamation, that he expects later this summer. This seemed very optimistic to me, especially for water, but hopefully he knows better.

Regarding water, he said they would be using 2,600 acre feet of water for Phase 1, and double that for Phase 2. I’m no water expert so I haven’t a clue what that means, but someone here does I’m sure. He stressed that they purposely over spent in their design to include a closed loop water system that would reduce water consumption, even though as he stated there are ”readily available” water rights in the area that would have been cheaper. I found this reassuring considering the upcoming hearings on water.

Regarding air quality, he said they would be employing proven technology that reduces emissions from the sulphuric acid plant down to what would come out of a diesel truck, which I guess by mining standards is a relatively good thing. Joe mentioned as an aside that he found it interesting that environmentalists were concerned about LAC’s sulphuric acid plant and not so much about the ones already running that are used to supply ingredients for soft drinks like Coke.

With respect to land reclamation, he spoke of North American Coal, the mining company they have contracted, who are experts not only at open pit mining but equally as important at land reclamation, for which they have won awards. A lot of planning has gone into land reclamation, including the fact that they already have the seeds needed to help restore the vegetation. 

Much of the above discussion was around ESG, and they fleshed this out by discussing LAC’s aspirational goal of using 100% carbon free power for their plant. This would be accomplished partly by the power generated from the excess heat from the sulphuric acid plant, supplemented by either generating or purchasing green power, primarily from solar. 

He confirmed that they have optimized their chemical processing at the pilot plant and are sending out 10s of kilos for final processing and inspection by potential customers. When the DFS is published it will probably include a short list of potential suppliers for the construction of various components of the plant, but it will probably not be finalized as the competitive bidding process will still be going on. No suggestion of when we can expect the DFS.

He confirmed what Evans said regarding ultimately producing both carbonate and hydroxide, and suggested that their strategic partner might need both. I thought that he tipped his hand a bit here, because to me it sounds like their strategic partner might be a customer that would need both salts. This is a bit more focussed than Evans including oil & gas and logistics companies in the mix. Maybe someone here could speculate which companies would need both hydroxide and carbonate. Presumably any battery maker, but would any OEMs other than TSLA? 

So not a lot of new stuff, but maybe a few more grains of information to add to our mix.