Modern Mining July 2023

LITHIUM

Leo Lithium’s Goulamina project targets The outlook for lithium, which is being driven by the global need for clean energy sources, remains extremely bullish. For Leo Lithium, the new kid on the mining block, its Goulamina Lithium Project in southern Mali underpins an extreme

ly positive looking future. The project, which is targeting spodumene pro duction at the end of the second quarter 2024, is close to 30% complete on the construction phase, MD Simon Hay, tells Modern Mining .

G lobal management consulting company, McKinsey Battery Insights’ team, has projected that the entire lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery chain, from mining through recycling, could grow by over 30% annually from 2022 to 2030, when it will reach a value of more than $400 billion and a market size of 4.7 TWh. “Batteries for mobility application, such as elec tric vehicles (EVs), will account for the vast bulk of demand in 2030—about 4 300 GWh; an unsurpris ing trend seeing that mobility is growing rapidly,” McKinsey said. According to Hay, to meet demand for lithium-ion batteries for the electric vehicle industry more lithium producing mines need to come on-board sooner rather than later. “The lithium industry is currently pegged at between 650 000 and 700 000 lithium carbon ate equivalent (LCE). By the end of the decade, the industry would need to grow between 2.5 and 3.2 million tonnes of ICE per annum. Essentially, in the next six and a half years, the industry will need to, at least, triple and even quadruple output to meet projected demand.” Goulamina targets production in 2024 ASX-listed Leo Lithium, a spin-off from Australian listed, Firefinch, which held a 50% stake in Goulamina, prior to its sale last year, remains on track to complete construction on Stage 1 of the project by year-end.

Leo Lithium’s CEO, Simon Hay.

Drill cores from Goulamina.

The pure play lithium company, which floated its shares on both the Australian and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges in June last year, where it raised A$100m, has a first mover advantage in Mali, a country renowned as a lead ing gold producer. Mali currently has an estimated 18 gold mines in operation, with lithium mining at an infancy stage, but set to play a leading role in diver sifying the local economy. The battery metals developer is set to become West Africa’s first spodumene producer when the project comes online to deliver product into a boom ing lithium-ion battery industry. “Leo Lithium is less than a year old and already has a workforce of over 400 Malian and 30 Australian employees working to get the project into production. We are halfway through the construction period and are pleased with our progress to date. Importantly, we are a fully funded project through our 50/50 joint venture with Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium (Ganfeng), the world’s largest lithium chemicals pro ducer by production capacity,” explains Hay, an experienced lithium miner, who joined the company in March last year. The project, which has a Stage 1 price tag of some $318 million ($285 million allocated to construction capital and $33 million to working

Below right: Construction of the grinding area.

Below: Construction of the primary crushing facility.

12  MODERN MINING  July 2023