The Prospect Resources discovery could be important for LPD and...

The Prospect Resources discovery could be important for LPD and Namibia. The discovery has an average composition of 11.5% lepidolite. The other dominant lithium-bearing mineral is petalite, with sub-ordinate spodumene.



The Prospect tenement (EPL 5533) is adjacent to LPD's exploration license area:



Where will the EPL 5533 minerals be processed?

The 2022Q2 report mentioned that the Karibib concentrator design supports doubling of the ore milling rate to 520,000tpa. The cyclones are also scaled for this throughput and a second ball mill can be added. The upgrade is primarily to allow for the increased throughput required as lower resource grades are mined from Year 9, thus allowing for the constant concentrate output of 60,000tpa.

There are several matters that LPD may need to consider.

1. Helikon 4 Resource
The additional resource identified at Helikon 4 is expected to extend the mine life by ~5 years. Pushing out the time when the concentrator upgrade is required means that any preliminary upgrade can be made available for EPL 5533 minerals.

2. Concentrator Design
LPD is making available the concentrator design to other miners. This is expected to save 1~2 years of development work. Prospect may decide to construct its own concentrator.

What About Concentrator Processing?
LPD has already discussed its receipt of unsolicited inbound enquiries from operators of lepidolite-rich assets. Prospect may be one of them. The availability of additional pegmatite mica concentrate could feed a P2 chemical plant.

Mine or Sell
Whether Prospect decides to mine the resource, or sell its mining licence may also represent an opportunity for LPD to acquire additional mineral resource. Either way, the identification by Prospect of these pegmatite micas is certainly encouraging for LPD and its scale opportunities (eg P2).