Thanks for sharing that article, interesting. I remember reading about Xinfeng a while ago, since they were allegedly planning like 200ktpa spod concentrate production near Omaruru.
The first issue is, the owners of some of those tenements are continuing to mine and explore where they have only applied for the tenement/claim, no EPL or ECC has been granted yet. The second issue, which relates to two small claims within (but seperate from) EPL 7248 south of us, is that Lithium is being extracted from the ground even though it's not within the commodity category specified on their license. The ministry seems to be running a genuine investigation into it. Askari has nothing to do with any of that though, as the problem lies with the dodgy owners of these other applications/claims. The EPLs Askari holds interest in are completely granted and active, and under the correct commodity category.
Shame about the delay. It isn't great practice to switch labs, for consistency reasons, so I can't really see them leaving ALS. Maybe now that Askari will have funds they could expedite some assays (could be part of the reason PSC got their assays back so quick, since they're absolutely cashed up). If we are currently using ALS Okahandja for both prep and assay, it might be worth finding somewhere else for the assay part.. maybe Johannesburg, like PSC. Saw one company (CAZ) prepped some Li soil samples in Namibia and sent them off to Ireland lol. So the chemical side of Okahandja must either have weak capacity, or they're pretty built up. Anyway, I'm sure management don't want a repeat of this delay, as it's also affected their drill program.
Not sure how you made that correlation between pegmatite structure and assay delays tho?
AS2 Price at posting:
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