Premier to commence commercial Lithium mining

Published: 04 July 2017

London Stock Exchange-listed mining exploration and production company, Premier African Minerals Limited (Premier), anticipates beginning commercial mining at its Zulu Lithium and Tantalum mine following positive metallurgical results on the site.

Premier's chief executive George Roach said while the group was going to conduct additional tests, the initial results were "very encouraging."

"… These results demonstrate that we can produce a commercial grade, high quality lithium mineral concentrates from both the spodumene and petalite mineralisation at Zulu project.

"We will continue to conduct further testing to optimise the recoveries and grades, as well as improving the flow sheet design for the Zulu project," Roach said.

Zulu - generally regarded as potentially the largest undeveloped lithium bearing pegmatite in the country is located 80 kilometres east of Bulawayo - and comprises 14 claims covering a surface area of 3,5km².

The metallurgical test - conducted by Germany-based Dorfner Anzaplan, a leading authority in the high purity industrial and strategic minerals and metals businesses - had also shown that the inferred mineral resource estimate at Zulu stood at 20,1 million tonnes grading, 1,06 percent Li2O on only a part of the 3,5km strike length of the Zulu project.

"… Again, this confirms that the Zulu project has all the hallmarks of a world-class lithium project," said Roach.

This comes as the London Stock Exchange-listed mining exploration and production group recently announced that it was discovering more lithium deposits at the mine.

"The drill programme at Zulu lithium project is progressing very well and we are seeing significantly more lithium mineralisation from the drilling than originally anticipated.

"The results to date warrant an extension of the current drilling programme and Premier believes Zulu has potential to rank as one of the best global hard rock lithium projects being explored at this time," Roach said earlier.

The project was first pegged in 1955 and intensely explored until the early 1960s. Minor petalite production was reported for 1961 and 1962. The pegmatite bodies intruded along serpentine and sedimentary rocks over a strike length of several kilometres.

The latest development comes as the company recently told investors that it had made its first shipment of wolframite concentrate from their RHA tungsten mine in Zimbabwe last month.
- dailynews