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The company plans to expand its lithium exploration footprint in Quebec, partnering with geology specialist Glenn Griesbach in an exclusive option agreement to acquire 669 claims totalling 385km2 in the prospective Decelles region.
The region has seen much recent activity, including high-grade spodumene discoveries by Vision Lithium at their adjacent Cadillac property, MD Chris Evans said.
“By acquiring this project, we significantly increase the company’s prospective lithium landholding in Quebec and continue towards achieving our vision of supplying high grade lithium products into the North American battery supply chain,” he said.
Not to mention the claim area “highly complementary” to Winsome’s existing Cancet, Adina and Sirmac-Clapier projects.
The company is planning to begin immediate exploration, with a desktop mapping of granitic outcrops based on the extensive historical and public data available on the area, followed by a winter field visit to inspect visible outcrops and collect samples.
Further fieldwork will be conducted in the Canadian summer once the snow has cleared and more outcrops are visible for mapping and sampling.
Bryah has kicked off reconnaissance exploration with mapping and on ground evaluation at its newly acquired Lake Johnston lithium-nickel project in WA.
The project consists of eight exploration licence applications covering a total area of 690km2, and the exploration ground extends to within 10 kilometres east of the Mount Holland Lithium mine and concentrator being developed under the Wesfarmers Limited (ASX:WES) and SQM Australia Pty Ltd joint venture.
The project also includes ground to the immediate west and north of Poseidon Nickel Limited’s (ASX:POS) Lake Johnston Project encompassing the Maggie Hays/Emily Ann mine and associated processing plant – which is currently under care and maintenance.
The Mount Holland project includes the Earl Grey Lithium deposit with a reported mineral resource of 189 million tonnes grading 1.5% Li2O1, and the Emily Ann mine historically produced 46,000 tonnes of nickel with a resource grade averaging 4.1% nickel2.
Vulcan has signed a binding lithium hydroxide offtake agreement with LG Energy Solution from its flagship project in the Upper Rhine Valley, Germany.
LGES is the second largest battery maker in the world with over 20% market share. It is currently manufacturing lithium-ion batteries in Poland, US, China, and South Korea.
The five-year agreement will see LG purchase between 41,000 to 50,000 metric tonnes of battery grade lithium chemicals from Vulcan. Pricing will be based on market prices for lithium hydroxide.
“The completion of the binding lithium offtake agreement with LG, in addition to our binding lithium offtake agreements with Volkswagen Group, Stellantis, Renault Group and Umicore, represents a globally unique achievement by the Vulcan Zero Carbon Lithium team,” MD Dr. Francis Wedin said.
“It means that we are fully sold out for the first five years of planned lithium production, which is an important foundation toward securing project finance.”
The start of commercial delivery is flagged for 2025.
The company released its December quarterly today, detailing that 53% of construction works are now complete at the Rincon 2,000tpa Li2CO3 operation in Argentina – and that the first production of battery quality Li2CO3 product is targeted from mid-2022.
Argosy is also pursuing approval for the environmental impact assessment as part of its plans to develop an additional 10,000tpa Li2CO3 operation to supplement the 2,000tpa operation under construction.
And the pricing environment is looking good. Lithium carbonate prices increased 432% during 2021 and have already soared 56% in 2022 – which the company says has led to formal progress with several strategic groups for lithium carbonate off-take arrangements and related strategic capex funding proposals for the 10,000tpa project expansion.
This quarter the company aims to formalise offtake agreement, as well as progress resource expansion and feasibility works at Rincon, and exploration planning works at the Tonopah lithium project in Nevada, USA.
During the December quarter, Latin completed initial reconnaissance mapping over its Salinas lithium project in Brazil.
Results confirmed that the mapped pegmatites contain lithium bearing spodumene with one sample returning a grade of 2.71% Li2O from highly weathered outcrop, and several others returning anomalous lithium grades.
The company also re-signed and extended an exclusive two-year option on the Bananal tenement agreement, whereby Latin may acquire a 100% interest in the tenement contiguous with its existing Bananal Valley project.
Latin also secured two new lithium tenements contiguous with the existing Bananal Valley tenements, increasing its ground position to 5,338 hectares.
The first drilling at Bananal Valley is expected to commence in February.
Pepinnini’s brine blending program at its Salta project in Argentina went well in the December quarter.
The company says an “exceptionally high” brine mix concentrate of 5.2% lithium was delivered from the Incahuasi and Rincon salares, and that the program has continue to deliver low contaminants.
The final results of the brine blending program are due this quarter and will form the basis for initial technical and economic project evaluation of the project.
The company is now planning drilling and sampling to define JORC lithium brine resource at the Incahuasi salar, along with a Preliminary Evaluation Assessment (PEA) or Scoping Study to determine viability of pilot-scale and full-scale LIC production.
The company says Greenbushes JV production for the quarter on a 100% basis comprised 258,659t of spodumene concentrate.
Plus, its Kwinana Refinery trial production continued with a focus on achieving continuous operations during the quarter – and first battery grade lithium hydroxide production is expected by March 2022.
“We have seen significant strengthening of benchmark pricing for spodumene and lithium chemicals, which will inform higher contract pricing in the March and June 2022 quarters,” MD and CEO Peter Bradford said.
“Within the lithium joint venture, Greenbushes has delivered robust operating performance and good progress on the expansion projects.
“The Tailings Retreatment Plant is well advanced and expected to be commissioned in the March 2022 quarter, and Chemical Grade Plant 3 front end engineering design progressed in accordance with schedule.
“At Kwinana, the team continued to transition the lithium hydroxide refinery from batch to continuous operations and remain on track to deliver first battery grade lithium hydroxide by March 2022.”
The company says it had a “transformational quarter” with the release of DFS for the Kathleen Valley Lithium Project, landmark Native Title Agreement and plus the completion of $450m placement.
The DFS flagged a ~23-year mine life, based on production rate of 2.5Mtpa at start-up to deliver ~500ktpa of spodumene concentrate – increasing to 4Mtpa in Year 6 to deliver ~700ktpa of spodumene.
Plus, the project has a Post Tax NPV(8%) of A$4.2billion, a payback of 2.3 years and a Life of Mine free cash flow (post tax) of A$12.2billion.
Liontown is targeting a final investment decision for Q2 2022 – with production expected to commence H1, 2024.
And just this month the company announced it secured a binding Offtake Term Sheet with South Korean-based LG Energy Solutions (the same gang as Vulcan) for the supply of 100,000 dry metric tonnes of spodumene concentrate SC6.0 in the first year, increasing to 150,000 DMT per year in subsequent years.
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