Huayou to complete US$300m lithium processing plant
CONSTRUCTION of the US$300 million processing plant at the Arcadia Lithium Mine has started with the facility expected to be complete by year –end ahead of commissioning in the first quarter next year.
Huayou Cobalt, a world conglomerate based in China, officially announced the acquisition of 87 percent shareholding in the Arcadia lithium project from Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe (PLZ) last month.
Addressing journalists during a media tour of the mine site on Monday, PLZ deputy general manager, Trevor Barnard, said the lithium processing plant will have an installed capacity to treat 4, 5 million tonnes of ore annually.
“Huayou Cobalt took over the Arcadia Lithium project officially on the 20th of April this year and since then, we have made remarkable progress to start with construction of the plant on this site.
“We obviously got all of the commissions we need to get to proceed with the construction and the plan is for us to complete the construction by the end of this year.
“And in the first quarter of next year, we will start with the commissioning and production of lithium concentrate from this site,” he said.
“The project in its entirety will amount to around US$300 million, it could be more or less but that’s the figure we have estimated at this stage of the project.”
The proposed plant, which has already been designed and procured from China will comprise the areas that include ore section, crushing section, and the spodumene section.
“The plan is to establish this processing plant with a capacity of around 4,5 million tonnes per annum which is a massive amount of ore that they will throughput and produce approximately around 400 000 tonnes of lithium concentrate every year.”
The mine’s lifespan is expected at between 10 and 15 years but with further geological developments, the lithium operation’s life is projected to be higher.
Huayou Cobalt was established in 2002 and is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
With a market capitalisation of around
US$20 billion, Huayou Cobalt is a leading supplier of lithium carbonate as well as cobalt materials to the lithium-ion battery industry.
“The funding of this project will be done from Huayou Cobalt on internal resources and it will be done and it’s all been approved by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and we have our investment licence from ZIDA (Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency),” said Barnard.
The lithium project was granted a National Project Status by the Government a few years ago.
A national project status is often granted to investments that require huge capital cost with a large portion of this being equipment and services not available in Zimbabwe.
Lithium is a strategic importance of Zimbabwe’s economy and forms a crucial element of the Second Republic’s target to build a US$12 billion mining industry by next year.
It is hoped that during the processing plant construction phase, the lithium operation will employ close to 600 workers.
“At the construction phase of this project, we will employ around 600 Zimbabwean employees here onsite and then during the production, that will be up to around 700 and even maybe more people that will have permanent positions.
“Obviously, there will be a lot more indirect employment opportunities because as we would all know with a mine like this you will have all services to support the mine,” said Barnard.
In an interview after the tour, PLZ plant manager George Togara said: “The exercise started with the clearing of the ground where we want to construct this plant.
“What’s happening at the moment as you can see, we have achieved 100 percent of that phase of the project and now the next stage is to do the layout (levelling of the ground for appropriate buildings).
“As you can see this is a slope so we need to level certain sections where we are going to put our plant.
“After that stage, we will then be building the foundations for the main structures of the equipment.
“We expect that by the end of August we will have completed that phase.”
Togara said shipment of the required equipment was being arranged and some of the basic equipment had already started arriving.
“For example, we have seen deliveries of truckloads of the steel reinforcement structures that are required in construction.
“In the period from August to December, we will be seeing the arrival of the equipment itself which is being put in place and then connected to the power grid and then we can start the commissioning process by the beginning of next year,” he said.
The mine will have a Zesa dedicated power line with which mine authorities are yet to consider whether to draw electricity from Dema Sub-Station or Bindura Sub-Station.
“But plans are underway to have dedicated power.
““At the same time, we are also arranging to have dedicated diesel-powered generators and in future, we will have solar-powered plants that will provide power in the absence of electricity from the national grid,” said Togara.