eBusiness Weekly
Oliver Kazunga
A SUBSIDIARY of China’s Huayou International Mining, Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe (PLZ) intends to venture to tantalite mining at its Arcadia lithium mining project in Goromonzi district, Mashonaland East province.
At the moment, the PLZ is producing lithium from spodumene and petallite rocks.
Speaking in an interview after a media tour of the mine on Tuesday, PLZ public relations executive Rugare Dhobbie said specialist teams were on the ground undertaking feasibility studies to see how best a tantalite plant can be established.
“Currently, we’re only getting petallite and spodumene and there is another third product which is tantalite; tantalite we don’t have a production unit for it and we actually have specialists that are on the ground to see how best we can also put up that unit for tantalite so that we can also start producing tantalite.
“So, you can see as we also have new investments into that production unit, it also means even the investment budget is going up and we are happy to say that the specialist teams are on the ground and very soon might also be seeing the third line of the product (tantalite) coming in,” she said.
PLZ, which marked its 1st anniversary last month recently commenced production at the lithium mine, stockpiled 30 000 tonnes of processed lithium from which 10 000 tonnes have been exported since the first sale towards the end of April.
The company has an installed capacity of 4,5 million tonnes of ore annually from which 500 000 tonnes of lithium concentrate would be exported.
“Currently, there is exploration that is actually ongoing to get more lithium resources and contribute to the US$12 billion mining industry by 2023.
“Production is set to increase as we go forward in the next few months,” she said.
The Arcadia lithium mine was established on the back of a US$377,8 million upfront cash consideration under a share sale agreement from Prospect Resources by Huayou International Mining.
Huayou was founded in 2002 and over the past two decades it has become a multinational corporation with a revenue base of more than US$48 billion and market value of more than US$100 billion, ranking among the top 500 enterprises in China.
The global giant investor consists of an integrated industrial structure consisting of resource, smelting, material recycling, and constructed an operation of overseas resources, domestic manufacturing and global manufacturing.
Huayou has over the years become a leading enterprise in the global cobalt industry and new energy lithium ion industry.
