ALLIANCE Mineral Assets Ltd has continued to set records for lithium production and shipping totals from the Bald Hill lithium and tantalum mine in WA.
The Bald Hill hard rock lithium operation boasts a top quality +1mm spodumene concentrate (low mica, low iron) and a significant tantalum by-product production.
Lithium production for the March quarter was 68pc higher than the previous quarter, with 38,291 wet metric tonnes (wmt) of high-grade spodumene concentrate produced, grading 6.1pc lithium carbonate.
The company also achieved a monthly production record in March when 15,012wmt was produced with a recovery of 70pc of gross feed and 79pc of net feed, after removal of unprocessed fines.
This follows record lithium production in January, with the company shipping 23,232wmt in early February, worth about $26m.
Managing director Mark Calderwood said it had been an excellent quarter as the mine continued to ramp up concentrate production through increased throughput, improved grades and recovery.
“We are well on track to meet our guidance for the first half of 2019 of 65,000 to 80,000wmt of lithium concentrate produced,” he said.
“Bald Hill’s coarse spodumene concentrate is being recognised by the industry as a premium product due to its coarse size, low fines and very low level of iron and other deleterious elements.
“The company expects to select its preferred customers for the remaining off?take over the next few months.”
Alliance’s targeted production for 2019 is 180,000t of spodumene with the stage 2 ramp-up expected to continue from Q4 2019 through 2020 to total 240,000t of spodumene per annum.
Stage 2 involves increased throughput by upgrading the fines circuit, including lowering the Dense Media Separation (DMS) bottom size from 1mm to 0.5mm and targeting an increase throughput from 220tph to 300tph, and an increase in recovery from around 66pc to around 72-80pc – which would equate to around a 40pc increase in production.
This has resulted in a revised medium term mining schedule for 2019 and 2020 to accommodate increase production rates, which also includes other benefits such as a lower strip ratio and lower costs from current rates at US$585/t to US$400/t in 2020.
Tantalum production
A total of 85wmt of tantalum pre-concentrate containing 34,380lbs of tantalum pentoxide was recovered from fines through the spirals circuit during the March quarter, in line with the December 2018 quarter production of 32,700lb.
The commissioning of two tables to upgrade spiral concentrates resulted in the production of concentrates containing 15-40pc tantalum pentoxide on-site, while work continued to be undertaken at Nagrom Mineral Laboratory in Perth to upgrade pre-concentrates.
Alliance also shipped a total of 44,305 dmt of tantalum concentrate, representing an almost 100pc increase on the December 2018 quarter.
The shipments comprised regular sales to Jiangxi Bao Jiang Lithium Industrial Limited and two shipments totalling 40dmt grading about 29pc Ta2O5 to H.C. Starck Tantalum and Niobium GmbH (H.C. Starck) in Germany.
Alliance also shipped high-grade tantalum concentrate containing 25,230 lbs tantalum pentoxide.
It is anticipated that sales of tantalum concentrate will continue to be sold to H.C. Stark on an ad hoc basis while discussions with HC Starck in relation to a long-term offtake for the high-grade tantalum concentrate production from Bald Hill Mine progress.
Exploration activities
For the first quarter of 2019, the focus at Bald Hill has been on mine development, but with operations now firmly underway, drilling activities are anticipated to ramp up in the second half of the year.
Resource drilling commenced in March of this year with the initial 350-hole, 60,000m program scheduled for completion by the end of September.
Mr Calderwood said that 80pc of activities in the first three months included infill drilling to allow further engineering, leading to potential increases to reserves and mine life.
“We also have some exciting extensional and exploration targets for which we will allocate some drilling,” he said.
