A 20 hole program at 1200 RC drill is 60 metres depth per hole. Obviously they assume it is a shallow deposit with little weathering given where the historical drills commence reporting ok LI20 counts. Suspect they will say pegmatite open at depth etc etc, but thought they should at least drill three of the holes to 200 metres to 250 metres (but that is not what they are proposing) if they were serious about drilling.
The negative in this announcement is it is lepidolite not spodumene (despite the grades reported which is more costlier to develop and has more impurities etc etc).
Spodumene has a Li2O content of 8.0%, meaning Li of 3.7%. Where you have roughly 1.6% Li20 (i.e. 20% of the rock is spod) then to get to your 6% Li20, which is what your customers desire, requires around 5 tonnes of ore at a 80% recovery assumption (or more if recovery is less) based on the calcs I did below. Lepidolite essentially has a lower Li content (how much lower is the question essentially here) hence you need more tonnes of ore to get to a 6% Li2o grade. The more tonnes you treat to get to 6% Li2O that means more cost.
Below is some workings from using the BGS data I have done just to illustrate the above points.
https://www.bgs.ac.uk/downloads/start.cfm?id=3100
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Column 1 |
Column 2 |
Column 3 |
Column 4 |
Column 5 |
Column 6 |
Column 7 |
Column 8 |
Column 9 |
Column 10 |
Column 11 |
| 1 |
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2.153 conversion factor |
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| 2 |
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Li |
Li20 (%) |
20% grade in rock Li2O |
Tonnes of ore 80% recovery to get to 6% |
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| 3 |
Spodumene |
3.7 |
8.0 |
1.6 |
4.7 |
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| 4 |
Lepidolite |
2.5 |
5.3 |
1.1 |
7.1 |
Li Grade anywhere between 1.4% - 3.5% Li so use average |
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| 5 |
Petalite |
2.0 |
4.2 |
0.8 |
8.9 |
Li Grade anywhere between 1.6% -2.3% Li so use average |
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| 6 |
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The attached might also be of use to those seeking to understand lithium better:
http://www.sgsgroup.com.cn/~/media/...-WA109-Hard-Rock-Lithium-Processing-EN-11.pdf
In any event, recognise it is a short exploration program, but prefer they focus on Lac Rainy
, or if they are to do further work at Manindi do some further exploration around zinc/copper/cobalt. My views on that are in this embedded post.
Post #:
30159590
All IMO
