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Minbos welcomes

open tender

inbos Resources Ltd is confident of IFDC [International Fertiliser Development
Mwinning back the Angolan phosphate Centre] in the last couple of years. Lindsay Reed
licences it was stripped of last year. “We’ve never given up on Angola. We
Following a protracted dispute over work had a problem with our JV, but not with An- Reed was full of praise for the IFDC,
programmes with its former JV partner, gola.” which has been assisting Minbos for more
Minbos was forced to relinquish its rights Should Minbos reclaim the licences, the than two years and is already active in many
to the Cabinda phosphate project despite company intends to focus on development African countries, albeit not yet Angola.
investing more than $20 million in the field of a local product rather than the large ex- IFDC greenhouse trials on Cabinda prod-
over almost a decade. port model it was previously pursuing. uct have reportedly yielded similar results to
With the licences now up for open tender, Reed said the existing 7mt resource at other phosphate rock field tests in Nigeria
Minbos is preparing to make an outright bid Cabinda which would have supported 10 and Kenya.
to pick up where it left off. years of exports is also capable of supply- “If we use the right water soluble fertiliser
“We will be competing with others, but ing Angola’s phosphate nutrient needs for in the right soil with the right crops, we can
we obviously have some advantage in that more than 30 years. take as little as 15% of the imported fertiliser
we’ve been there for a long time, we’ve “With the help of the IFDC, we’ve iden- and mix it together with the Cabinda rock
spent a lot of money and we understand the tified making a local product that is both and we’re getting results in pots that are
resources,” Minbos chief executive Lindsay soluble and cost-effective for phosphate almost identical to the imported fertiliser,”
Reed said. nutrients in the context of Angolan soils and Reed said.
“We’ll leverage on the back of the $20 mil- Angolan crops,” Reed said. “We think we’re going to get around 80%
lion that we’ve already spent on phosphate “That’s particularly important because of the effectiveness of the imported fertiliser
projects in the Congo Basin and the knowl- in the Congo Basin it’s seen as one of the for around about 50% of the cost.”
edge that we have from there, but also the ways of actually lifting up the economies of
knowledge that we’ve developed from the those areas.” – Michael Washbourne

West African lithium mine step closer

ali Lithium Ltd is unperturbed by the ium demand is set to increase ninefold in programme designed to upgrade both re-
Mrecent string of setbacks in the Austral- the coming decade. sources and reserves due to start immi-
ian lithium sector and is instead full of con- Evans’ confidence stems from both com- nently and DFS optimisation work started
fidence about the future of its African asset. modity forecasts and the robustness of the on improving recoveries and the quality of
The last 12 months have been a grim pe- company’s Goulamina project in south-east the concentrate product.
riod for lithium players on the ASX with Alita Mali. A PFS published last year showed “We are also working with financiers and
Resources Ltd falling into administration “absolutely fantastic economic outcomes”, offtake strategic partners,” Evans said.
and Pilbara Minerals Ltd having to revise its according to Evans. Based on a long-term In a further boost to the company’s plans,
ambitious growth plans. Further down the conservative outlook of $US670/t – com- Mali Lithium received its full mining permit
development curve, explorers are finding pared to a price of $US1,000/t 18 months from the Malian Government in late August.
their momentum stymied by falling concen- ago and $US600/t currently – Goulamina Evans said Goulamina was the largest
trate prices. has a NPV of $1 billion. The PFS assumed and highest grade uncommitted hard rock
Mali Lithium managing director Chris production of 360,000 tpa of lithium con- lithium reserve in the world and as such he
Evans brushed off the current lithium ma- centrate over 16 years. expected financiers and offtakers to show
laise, telling Africa Down Under delegates Evans arrived as part of a board reshuf- strong interest in the project.
his company was perfectly placed to take fle earlier this year, bringing his experience In December, the company struck an
advantage of a market rebound. at Altura Mining Ltd’s Pilgangoora mine in arrangement with China Minmetals Cor-
“We will be ready for a flying start when Western Australia with him. The refreshed poration which will test the Goulamina con-
the lithium market improves,” Evans said, board undertook a strategic review of Gou- centrate for its ability to feed future lithium
pointing to widespread evidence that lith- lamina earlier this year, identifying four ar- markets.
eas of focus. With the company fully committed to
“The new group all have experience in Goulamina, it is looking for divestment op-
lithium mine development, financing and tions for its gold assets in Mali.
operations,” Evans said. “We used that The company has a JV with Barrick Gold
experience to have a good look at the as- Corp over the Viper and N’tiola tenements
set and decided we needed to focus on and received a $4.46 million royalty pay-
increasing confidence in the resource and ment in July. It also has a larger collection
reserves, optimising the DFS, securing of exploration tenements and Evans said
offtake and position the company to move a decision would be made on how best to
rapidly out of the lithium downturn.” hive off the gold assets.
Work has already begun with a drilling
Chris Evans

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT OCTOBeR 2019 Page 65