Mt Marion ships its first lithium

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Mt Marion lithium project, in Western Australia, has shipped its first lithium concentrate.

Project partners Mineral Resources and Neometals on Tuesday said the first shipment of 15 000 t of lithium concentrate was loaded at the Port of Kwinana, for delivery to Chinese offtake partner Ganfeng Lithium.

The first shipment of lithium concentrate followed the successful commissioning and the continued ramp-up of production at the Mt Marion operation, which was expected to produce 400 000 t/y at full capacity.

Ganfeng, which has a 13.8% interest in the project through Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium, has agreed to an offtake of 200 000 t/y of spodumene concentrate of between 4% and 6% lithium-oxide content.

Mineral Resources previously flagged the possibility of divesting of its 43.1% interest in the Mt Marion project.