eBusiness Weekly
Oliver Kazunga
PREMIER African Minerals has temporarily suspended operations at the Zulu lithium and tantalum project in Matabeleland South Province to pave way for the installation and commissioning of a mill from its other local operation.
Situated in Fort Rixon, Insiza District, the newly developed Zulu lithium and tantalum project, produced its first ore in April this year though at a limited scale due to unforeseen operational challenges encountered at the plant.
In a statement released this week, Premier which also owns the RHA Tungsten Mine in Matabeleland North said: “Operations at Zulu have been temporarily suspended to allow for the installation and commissioning of the mill from RHA Tungsten.
“This is expected to be completed during the early Autumn and within sufficient time to meet the revised product delivery schedule which has been agreed at an initial rate of 1 000 tonnes of product shipped to Canmax by the end of November.”
Premier, which is a United Kingdom-based mining and natural resource development firm last year entered into an offtake and prepayment agreement with China’s Canmax Technologies Co Limited where the Asian investor provided US$34,7 million funding to enable the construction and commissioning of a large-scale pilot plant at Zulu.
When operating at full throttle, the Zulu project is projected to produce 4 000 tonnes of lithium concentrate per month. So far, Premier is engaged in 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.
“Plant optimisation is ongoing and, largely as a result of the delays in resolving the plant issues, Premier needs immediate funding.
“In addition, while the plant fixes are the acknowledged responsibility of Stark International Projects Limited (the Zulu lithium plant contractor), Premier will need to ensure that adequate funds are available to avoid any further delays,” it said.
As part of the solution to Premier’s immediate funding requirements, the company has opted to draw down on the entire £2 million Amended Facility entered into with its chief executive officer George Roach.
Last month, 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 was almost on the brink of collapse 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 arrangement, Premier was expected to start shipping spodumene concentrate to the Canmax’s operation in China by end of March this year.
However, the UK-headquartered company has announced that the two parties have reached a consensus and an announcement regarding the amended conditions of the arrangement will be made in due course.
The termination of the agreement could have negatively impacted the development of the Zulu lithium project.
Lithium is a mineral used in the manufacturing of batteries and its demand has arisen sharply due to the global demand in electric vehicles, particularly in developed countries that are forging ahead with plans to phase out fossil fuels like 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.
