General Discussion, page-1383

Over the years there have been quite a few comparisons made between FFX/LLL’s Goulamina project & LTR’s Kathleen Valley.

These have been more market cap comparisons rather than comparisons of the projects themselves.

I should say at the outset, I own both as well as PLS which I’ll also mention.

I think it will be interesting watching the progress of Goulamina and KV. Both are very similar and at the same stage building very similar sized plants with planned completion in similar time frames.

Both are 500ktpa (stage 1) projects, both are financed and are presently building the accommodation camps. They both are also building stage 1 with circuits provisioned to expand to 4mtpa in stage 2. The similarities are uncanny really.

Where they differ is Goulamina will be open pit vs KV mostly underground. This is mainly because the pegmatite veins are fairly thin at KV vs average widths of 58m for Leo. Also underground was easier to get indigenous approvals as it has a smaller footprint. Underground is more expensive however LTR offset this with Tantalum credits as a bi product.

Another big difference is the planned comminution circuit. Interestingly they both (independently?) came up with an ideal grind size of 180μm (0.18mm so very small) both mining pegmatite, yet they go about it in very different ways.

LTR plan to use a 2 stage circuit, jaw crusher then a SAG Mill,

Leo plans to use a jaw crusher, then secondary and tertiary crushers before going to the Ball Mill.

2 very different circuits all crushing pegmatites to the same grind size.

PLS, CXO and AVZ all use DMS in their circuits whereas Leo and LTR use Flotation. DMS/HMS is Cheaper compared to flotation, partly because the grind size is much larger, but at the cost of a lower recovery. ~ 80% for LLL/LTR vs 60% and 72% for AVZ & CXO respectively. PLS are introducing flotation for the fines and their smaller Altura plant uses flotation.

I will watch with interest to see how the 2 projects progress. Presently at the same stage, KV will have challenges with the labour shortages in WA, Leo will have different challenges with its remoteness.

It will also be very interesting to see how CXO go with the their timetable, costs and the commissioning. You may remember it took both Galaxy and PLS a lot longer (and cost) than planned to get their plants running to nameplate.