Hi Flight
The good news: There is no horizontal kiln required to produce 6% Spodumene Concentrate (SC6).
The horizontal kiln, or calciner, is required to produce PLS.
Please see the DFS it explains the process.
Operating a horizontal rotating kiln at ~1050C requires a bit of knowledge (1050C is pretty high).
Don't you think it would be smart to talk with a company which operates a multitude of horizontal kilns at ~900C?
The reason I mentioned Dangote is:
1 Because the name was mentioned in a previous post.
2 There are posters who keep on saying that AVZ doesn't have the team, or experience to advance the Manono Lithium and Tin project to production.
(To be extremely honest, so far I am very happy, that AVZ does not have an office full with project people, waiting, like a coiled spring, for the DRC to get its act together. Project people don't come cheap. I know, I was one and we don't work for peanuts, even if we are in the coiled spring mode.)
If one combines these 2 points and look at what Dangote does and where it operates, it would make some sense.
A lot of work can be contracted out, but until the ML drops a skeleton crew is the way to go to contain costs.
No I don't have shares in Dangote.
Dangote:
Our Pan-African operations encompass everything outside of Nigeria.
WEST AFRICA
Our operations in West Africa and Central Africa are located in Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. In the coming years we plan to extend our reach with integrated plants and grinding plants in strategic locations. We could also consider increasing the size of our existing integrated and grinding plants.
EASTERN & SOUTHERN AFRICA
In the east and south of Africa we have existing or planned operations in Ethiopia, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Zimbabwe. All these countries have ample native limestone, so all our facilities there will be integrated factories, with the exception of the Delmas cement milling plant in South Africa.
Countries on Africa’s east coast are to some degree exposed to cheap imports from Pakistan and the Far East. As a result, our strategy is in most cases to site our factories well inland, where pricing is higher and where imported cement would face additional shipping costs to reach the market.
View attachment 16955
And one of their plants.
I hope it all explains.