Mt Holland granted ‘Lead Agency Service’ by WA Government Kidman Resources Limited (ASX: KDR) is pleased to advise that Western Australian (WA) Premier, the Honourable Mark McGowan has advised that the Mt Holland Project, incorpora ng the development of a mine, processing plant and re nery, has been granted the status of ‘Level 2 Lead Agency Service’ by the WA Government. Kidman and its Chilean based joint venture partner Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (NYSE: SQM) are in the process of nalising the technical scope for development of the mine and processing plant on site at Mt Holland, located 110km south-east of Southern Cross. The site selec on process, for the re nery plant to produce ba ery grade Lithium Hydroxide and/or Carbonate, is also well underway. The gran ng of ‘Lead Agency Service’ to Mt Holland will assist with the streamlining of the project development ac vi es, including the assessment of each strategic industrial site for the re nery, and further advance the feasibility study and approvals for the mining and concentrator opera on. The Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innova on is the lead agency for resource projects of strategic importance to WA. Current examples include the Gorgon Project on Barrow Island and the Roy Hill iron ore project in the Pilbara. Kidman Managing Director, Mar n Donohue, welcomed the decision by the WA Government to elevate the project status of Mt Holland and said it was the culmina on of proac ve engagement from key Government stakeholders with both Kidman and SQM execu ves in the past six months and their recogni on of the strategic value of Kidman’s integrated opera on with a domes c lithium re nery. “This decision reinforces the poten al economic contribu on of the proposed development of a large open pit lithium mine and processing opera on in the Shire of Yilgarn as well as a standalone lithium re nery in Western Australia,” Mr Donohue said. “I would like to thank the WA Government for its support for the future of lithium produc on in WA. This commitment now underpins the signi cant investment to come with the construc on of a Kidman/SQM re nery which will see WA move to a larger exporter of higher value bene ciated ba ery-grade chemicals.” Earlier this month a Scoping Study was released on Mt Holland, which de ned a produc on target of 47Mt at 1.4% Li2O over a 25 year period ( Refer ASX release 3rd October 2017) from a large scale, low technical risk open pit mining opera on with strip ra o of just 2.3 (reducing to 1.9 a er pre-strip) and using a conven onal processing circuit. The Mineral Resource of 128 million tonnes at 1.44% Li2O for 1.84 million tonnes of lithium oxide provides signi cant opportunity to expand mine life at poten ally higher annual processing rates.
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