Argosy Minerals Limited reported that the development of the Rincon Lithium Project is continuing, with the 2,000 tpa operation progressing towards continuous production works.
A total of 13.5 tonnes of lithium carbonate products of battery quality have been generated in batch production trials throughout commissioning and ramp-up works, with an average product quality of 99.79% so far during the 2,000 tpa operations.
Argosy has completed all chemical process and technology validation and verification work, successfully validating the ability to generate commercial-scale battery-quality lithium carbonate products.
The 2,000 tpa commissioning work is nearing completion in preparation for continuous production operation trials, while batch ramp-up work towards continuous production operations is ongoing.
The Company intends to begin continuous production operations at Rincon Lithium Project by the end of Q2-CY2023. This will be a significant milestone as the Company transitions to commercial producer status and begins to generate cash flows from the sale of lithium carbonate products.
“The Company’s Puna operations team are successfully progressing the 2,000tpa operation commissioning and ramp-up works towards continuous production operations, where we have produced 13.5 tonnes of battery quality lithium carbonate product to date,” Argosy Managing Director Jerko Zuvela said.
Furthermore, Zuvela stated that validating the chemical process technology to produce battery-quality lithium carbonate on a commercial scale is a significant accomplishment. Zuvela noted that this has not been done very often in the lithium sector and is quite tough to perform, as Argosy has seen from other operators attempting to do so at their plants.
“The Company is delighted to realise these significant milestones at our Rincon Lithium Project, becoming only the 2nd ASX listed commercial scale Li2CO3 producer. We look forward to realising many more significant milestones in 2023 as we transform into a cashflow generator, capitalising on lucrative lithium carbonate prices via upcoming product sales revenues, leading to a significant near-term growth phase for the Company,” Zuvela added.
Argosy’s 2,000tpa production activities are ideally positioned to capitalise on current and near-term lithium pricing, with the Benchmark Mineral Intelligence lithium carbonate CIF Asia (contract) price recently reported at US$54,000/t.
