RE: Only other planned lithium hydroxide plant in UK/EU2 Feb 2023 16:57
The company will also look to secure funding for the estimated $600-million capital investment required for the proposed lithium hydroxide plant, which could produce some 30 000 t/y of lithium hydroxide.
“It will be the biggest lithium hydroxide project ever built in the US. It will require 295 000 t/y of spodumene concentrate a year, and that material will come principally from our Ghana affiliate and maybe something from Quebec.
“First production from Tennessee will be around 24 months after we put a shovel in the ground, and we are hoping for construction as early as July or August. It really depends on the funding. We might decide to wait a little while to bring lower cost funding into the capital structure, but we haven’t made that decision yet.”
In Ghana, Piedmont is partnering with ASX-listed Atlantic Lithium at the Ewoyaa project, where a PFS last year demonstrated that the project could produce 255 000 t/y of 6% lithium spodumene concentrate over a 12-and-a-half-year mine life.
Capital expenditure for the project is currently estimated at $125-million.
Piedmont is working towards a 50% stake in Ewoyaa, spending $17-million on exploration funding and the completion of a DFS, and also committing to half of the capital cost to develop the project.
Atlantic on Wednesday increased the mineral resource estimate at Ewoyaa to 35.5-million tonnes, at 1.25% lithium oxide, with the measured and indicated resource now accounting for 79% of the total resource.
Atlantic told shareholders that the larger tonnage would provide the opportunity to evaluate an extended mine life and increased throughput at Ewoyaa to enhance the project economics.
“Our goal was to convert the inferred to indicated category, define the first one to two years of planned production to measured category and increase the overallresource scale. We have comfortably achieved all our goals, demonstrating the robust geological fundamentals of the project,” Atlantic interim CEO Lennard Kolff said in a statement.
First concentrate shipment from Ghana is tentatively planned for the third quarter of 2024.
Back in the US, Piedmont is also focusing on its North Carolina asset, which is expected to come online 12 months after the Tennessee lithium hydroxide plants.
“We are thinking about it [North Carolina] being 12 months after Tennessee, so we expect that permits and approvals will be in place well in advance of that. And then while we're building Tennessee, we'll be putting the funding together for Carolina,” Phillips said.
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