Central to Lepidico Ltd (AX:LPD) is its disruptive (patent-pending) L-Max® (hereafter L-Max) metallurgical technology that recovers lithium from micas (eg lepidolite), and therefore holds out the prospect of creating a new source of lithium supply. Despite being an abundant lithium-bearing mineral, lepidolite has hitherto been overlooked as there has been no commercial process by which to process it economically. This report necessarily values Lepidico on the basis of the pre-feasibility study (PFS) performed on a proposed Phase 1 L-Max plant at Kenora, Canada. Beyond that however, there are a number of development options including 1) scaling up the process to full industrial scale (Phase 2); 2) securing lepidolite resources cheaply and developing them into multiple dedicated mines; and 3) developing relationships with third-party mining companies to provide further feed sources to its plant(s).
Scaling up and proof of concept
L-Max uses readily available mainstream chemicals and a recent PFS completed by MinMet Services Pty Ltd estimates C1 cash costs of production of lithium carbonate as close to zero (net of by-products) via this method. To date, Lepidico has conducted large scale laboratory tests that have shown the L-Max technology to operate continuously and stably over a protracted period of time. The PFS assumed a small scale, commercial L-Max plant processing a lithium mica concentrate at a rate of 3.6 tonnes per hour (tph) to produce c 3,000tpa of battery grade lithium carbonate and a suite of commercially important by-products. Having received the results of the PFS for the Phase 1 L-Max Plant, Lepidico’s strategic imperative is now the advancement of the project to full feasibility study (feasibility study or FS) level and the simultaneous development of the Phase 1 plant. NB: Conceptual estimates for a Phase 2 plant currently envisage producing c 7x as much lithium carbonate, for 3.4x as much capex to generate 8x as much NPV.
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