China’s Ganfeng increases Mt Marion offtake

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – China’s Ganfeng Lithium has agreed to expand the scope of its offtake agreement for spodumene concentrate from the Mt Marion lithium project, in Western Australia, joint venture (JV) partners Mineral Resources and Neometals announced on Wednesday

Ganfeng, which has an interest in the project through Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium, has agreed to increase its offtake to 200 000 t/y of spodumene concentrate of between 4% and 6% lithium-oxide content.

Initially, Ganfeng and the project vehicle, Reed Industrial, agreed to take-or-pay 100% of the 6% lithium-oxide chemical-grade spodumene concentrate produced from Mt Marion. The Chinese company later expanded the scope of the offtake arrangement to take-or-pay of 80 000 t/y of spodumene concentrate of between 4% and 6% lithium oxide content.

This has now been expanded to 200 000 t/y.

The expanded offtake arrangements were conditional on Reed Industrial and Mineral Resources agreeing and finalising the necessary variations to the mining services agreement to cover the production of the lower grade product, which would include the addition of a flotation plant at the Mt Marion project. The variation would be concluded on completion of a detailed metallurgical test programme currently being undertaken.