Well done Gt1 team. That Maiden JORC was quicker than I'd expected. And now the Integrated Hydroxide PEA has got 22.5Mt of pit constrained resource to work with rather than the earlier 14.4Mt.
The pit-constrained element of the JORC resource is important because it should create a higher relationship between resource and ultimately reserves. Assuming either its all economically mineable or for anything that isn't, further discoveries are made the PEA could use mining at 1Mt/yr. There's 2 years of mining before material is fed into the Hydroxide process and then 20 years of material to process. By the time the FID for hydroxide occurs, exploration should have increased reserves further.
This is still a relatively small resource for Hydroxide ambitions so GT1 will need to maximise recoveries to get as much Spod as possible from what's there. If you are going to Maximise recoveries but minimise startup capital, the following would appear to work well:
- An initial crusher/DMS unit at Seymour (and fines are stockpiled)
- Post first production a smaller back-end flotation circuit is built to process Root/Seymour fines. I'm not sure where this is located. While you would increase the transportation of DSO fines, it might be operationally cheaper to construct and run nearer a population centre of perhaps Armstrong or even Thunder Bay. There may be operational step synergies of flotation co-location with the Hydroxide plant.
- The 2027 Hydroxide plant commissioning at Thunder Bay occurs with the Spod from the DMS but by late 2027/early 2028 as it needs more material the flotation circuit is increasing its capacity.
As previously advised there's a 72.6% recovery rate from DMS. Real world rather than lab often lowers this so say 69%. There's 20.9% of the lithium units available from fines and middlings. If a flotation circuit had a 75% recovery of this, there's another 15.7% onto recovery rates taking it to 84.7%.
Life of Mine view: 1Mt * (1.14%/6.00%) * 84.7% = 161kt pa of Spod. Using Piedmont's 196kt of Spod = 30kt Hydroxide, you are at 24.6Ktpa of Hydroxide.The first few years are mining Seymour Indicated resource (1.29%). 1Mt * (1.29%/6.00%) * 84.7% = 182Kt (27.9ktpa Hydroxide).
By the time you get to the FID with more resource and therefore more life of mine, 1.1Mt mining rates could potentially feed a 30Kt Hydroxide plant that is planned. More exploration success and both Root / Seymour may be able to have their own 1.1Mt processing capacity and there's the material for the 2nd Hydroxide plant.
