Prospect says ready to start pilot lithium production

AUSTRALIA-LISTED mining concern, Prospect Resources, says it is ready to start production at its Arcadia Lithium project in the next coming weeks after taking delivery of pre-assembled pilot plant equipment last week.

The Arcadia lithium project, which is situated near Harare, is presently under development with the company indicating that machine installations were underway.

In the latest update on its Twitter handle, Prospect indicated that among other activities, it was installing a crushing unit and has updated its core shed while the ore stockpile has been completed.

“DMS (Dense Media Separation) unit ready for operation and making its way to Arcadia. Ready to start production in the coming weeks,” it said.

Recently, Prospect announced that they were expecting to start shipping high-grade petalite to Europe by end of this month.

At the Arcadia project, Prospect has announced that it would be producing petalite, which is technical grade and spodumene, (chemical) grade lithium samples.

The company has decided to focus the pilot plant on producing only technical grade petalite samples using dense media separation (DMS).

The alternative is in accordance with Arcadia’s existing feasibility study flowsheet rather than producing both petalite and spodumene samples using a flotation flowsheet.

The DMS feasibility study flowsheet has proved to have greater technical certainty than the flotation flowsheet. The Australia-headquartered mining company has already signed off-take agreements with buyers in Europe and other markets for its lithium output but must submit samples to determine whether its product meets technical specifications.

The company has to provide samples of up to 100 tonnes per customer. —Chronicle.co.zw