Ann: Battery Grade LithiumCarbonate Produced from Sepeda Petalite, page-2

Battery grade 99.97% Li2CO3 produced from Sepeda petalite during metallurgical test work at Dorfner-Anzaplan in Germany

Test work confirms that industry standard, commercially proven methods can be used for lithium carbonate production from Sepeda petalite - reducing development risk

Previous results have already highlighted the potential for Sepeda to produce a very-low impurity petalite concentrate, via conventional methods, suitable for the European technical market

Sighter metallurgical test work, on Sepeda material, has now produced an ultra-low impurity technical grade petalite concentrate and chemical (battery) grade lithium carbonate • Results will be incorporated into the Scoping Study – due to be finalised in June 2017

DAKOTA MINERALS LTD (“Dakota”, “DKO” or “the Company”) (ASX: DKO, FRANKFURT: ORM), is pleased to announce the conclusion of its sighter metallurgical test work programme, conducted by Dorfner-Anzaplan in Germany.
Material was tested from the Sepeda Lithium Project (“Sepeda”), Portugal, the largest LCT pegmatite-hosted JORC compliant lithium Mineral Resource in Europe. Initial results show that battery-grade (99.97% Li2CO3) lithium carbonate can be produced from Sepeda material using industry-standard, conventional methods of calcination, acid baking and leaching.

This will allow Dakota to pursue “off-the-shelf” processing technologies for Feasibility Studies at Sepeda, substantially reducing development risk and keeping costs predictable.
As announced previously by the Company on 24 April, results from the sighter metallurgical test work show that a very-low impurity petalite concentrate has been produced by flotation, which is suitable for the premium technical market in Europe. The technical market offers significant potential to Dakota. Lithium products are used directly in a variety of technical applications, mostly for use in glass and ceramics. Whilst the markets are well established, the demands are very specific, and these products typically require lithium with extremely low iron concentration to meet specialist enduser requirements.

Test work results will now be collated and used in finalising Dakota’s Scoping Study in the coming weeks.

Dakota Minerals CEO David Frances commented: “With the confirmation that lithium carbonate can be produced from Sepeda petalite, as expected, this is another major step towards our strategic goal of becoming a sustainable supplier of lithium products to the burgeoning European market.

We expected that petalite from Sepeda, being a lithium aluminium silicate similar to spodumene, was likely to work well with conventional processing technologies.
This was our strategic reason for targeting petalite over other, less conventional sources available in Europe.

We now have the potential to develop a staged execution with low development risk, producing both exceptionally low-iron petalite concentrate for the lucrative technical market, and battery-grade lithium carbonate for the rapidly expanding European battery market.

We now expect to finalise the Scoping Study within the next two weeks.”