eBusiness Weekly
Oliver Kazunga
PREMIER African Minerals has resumed production at its Zulu lithium and tantalum mining project in Matabeleland South province following the successful installation and commissioning of a mill from its defunct RHA Tungsten Mine.
The United Kingdom-headquartered mining and natural resource exploitation company, also owns the RHA Tungsten Mine in Matabeleland North province.
In August this year, Premier announced the temporary suspension of operations at Zulu to pave the way for the planned installation and commissioning of a mill from the RHA Tungsten project.
The company has hinted on revised product delivery schedule agreed at an initial rate of 1 000 tonnes of product shipped to Canmax Technologies Co Limited by the end of November.
The Zulu lithium and tantalum asset, which is located in Fort Rixon, Insiza District, produced its first ore in April this year though at a marginal scale due to unforeseen operational challenges encountered at the plant.
Last year, the two parties entered into an offtake and prepayment agreement with China’s Canmax Technologies Co Limited where, Canmax, the Asian investor provided US$34,7 million funding to enable the construction and commissioning of a large-scale pilot plant at Zulu.
In an update on the Zulu project, Premier chief executive officer, George Roach said; “I am pleased to confirm the plant at Zulu resumed operations with material fed through the newly installed and commissioned mill.”
When operating at full throttle, the Zulu project is projected to produce 4 000 tonnes of lithium concentrate per month.
While Premier also worked on installation and commissioning of the mill from the RHA Tungsten project, the mining group was engaged in the ongoing plant optimisation at Zulu to address the existing bottlenecks and beef-up production.
Key aspects of plant optimisation include increase in density of material provided to the floatation plant; installation as an intermediate upgrade of redundant RHA Tungsten rod mill at Zulu; and refinement of the spodumene concentrate to eliminate mica and lepidolite minerals.
In addition to plant fixes that are the responsibility of Stark International Projects Limited (the Zulu lithium plant contractor), Premier needs adequate funding to support its operations and avoid any unforeseen production delays.
And as part of the solution to Premier’s immediate funding requirements, it has opted to draw down on the entire £2 million Amended Facility entered into with Roach.
In July this year, Premier announced that Roach had extended an unsecured £1,7 million (US$2,2 million) loan facility to support the Zulu lithium and tantalum project.
Meanwhile, the offtake and prepayment deal between the two parties almost collapsed after Premier was not able to process sufficient spodumene to meet the conditions of the agreement due to unforeseen operational challenges encountered at the lithium project.
Under the agreement, Premier was expected to start shipping spodumene concentrate to the Canmax’s operation in China by end of March this year.
The termination of the agreement could have negatively impacted the development of the Zulu lithium project.
Lithium is a base metal used in the production of batteries and its demand in recent years rose sharply owing to the global demand in electric vehicles, particularly in developed countries that are leading in phasing out fossil fuels such as petrol and diesel in the coming years.
Generally, the Zulu project is regarded as potentially the largest undeveloped lithium bearing pegmatite in Zimbabwe, covering a surface of about 3,5 kilometres that are prospectively of lithium and tantalum mineralisation.
