CHorn and all...RE Other minerals the mica mine will throw off.
I was just working on this area last night! I heard that at the Phoenix meeting, they made a public statement mentioning the presence of lithium. Subject to correction, I believe they said the lithium was present in quantities equal to 3% of the mica weight.
So here's my initial math on the annual impact of lithium:
Stated annual Mica production year one 10,000 tons
Lithium as a segment at 3% 300 tons 600,000 lbs.
Allowance for loss through 25% <150,000> lbs
production process
Net lithium poundage 450,000 lbs
Price for Lithium $300/lb
Gross Market Value Retail $135,000,000
The lithium is removed from the mica during normal processing through flotation. So at first blush, it seems there is not a big cost in extracting the lithium. If accurate, Azco's share of the market price is sure to be a high percentage.
These are annualized figures based on initial production rate on mica of 10,000 tons/year. They stated at the meeting that they expected prodction to be at 500 tons per day in year 3 I believe. 5day week / 260 production days/yr / 130,000 tons a year / Lithium Value if accurate based on 300 tons on 10,000 mica initially x 13 for year 3 = 135,000,000 x 13 = 1.755 BILLION Gross Market Value at todays price.
Room for error here. Yes. This is a first blush look as I said. Based on the scale of these numbers, I can miss by 50% and still have gargantuan implications for Lithium. Pretty nice for a by-product.
link to Lithium data
in-search-of.com
BHunt |
