Nice sleuthing, fgems. No doubt another road bump (sic) on progressing the James Bay project but resolving complex issues is what senior executives of big firms like Allkem are paid to do.
I see the outfit in Quebec that Sayona and Piedmont acquired last year, North American Lithium, got their environmental tick back in 2018. That process was under different legislation but there should be some parallels between what was required of NAL and our James Bay project.
https://www.canada.ca/en/impact-assessment-agency/news/2018/07/north-american-lithium-spodumene-mine-project--environmental-assessment-decision.htmlNAL chose to put their waste rock in a couple of stockpiles near to the mine site. Allkem's proposal was to spread out their waste rock as road base. Seems a straight forward fix: rock piles not roadways, but then of course the next question is what road were they going to build using the waste rock. The JB processing centre is literally next to the Billy Diamond Highway which already is capable of handling the trucks hauling the concentrate to the rail head. Also all of the pits are quite adjacent to the processing plant. So no extensive haulage roads needed. Maybe this is an easy fix (hopefully) which will not delay the approval process much.
This is the write-up from the regulatory agency of how NAL (successfully) addressed what to do with the waste rock.
https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/documents/p59158/121526E.pdfAs an aside, Sayona announced during the week that they have a JORCed MRE at the NAL project of more than 100mt of concentrate (but at a fairly low 1.0%) and are saying they will release their DFS for the project in the next couple of weeks with a scheduled restart date of Q1CY23. Also the previously stillborn project of Nemaska is showing signs of life with a possible start date in 2024. The last wave of lithium development in Quebec was China-led but for various reasons that crashed and burnt. The next lithium wave in Quebec seems to be forming and is very much Australian, with Allkem and Sayona leading the pack.
