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Nqobile Bhebhe, [email protected]

MINING and natural resource development company Premier African Minerals has parted ways with one of its main plant suppliers and installers —  Stark International Projects Limited — and has taken over the running of the Fort Rixon lithium plant in a move described as “dramatic” but necessary.

Stark International had been engaged as a design, procurement, installation and commissioning contractor.

As announced on June 24, 2022, Premier accepted a proposal and a quotation to design, supply and deliver to Zulu and to assemble and commission a plant at an additional charge that was to meet certain specific design and through-put specifications.

The plant was expected to produce spodumene concentrate at 6 percent Li20 from March 2023.

Spodumene is a lithium-bearing rock that is a commercially important source of the base metal. The plant had not met the specific design and through-put specifications a year after the original target completion date.

Due to failure to meet the specifications, Premier Africa Minerals has requested that Stark demobilise and leave the plant site immediately. Stark has agreed and done so, a latest update shows.

“Stark and Premier will continue to engage on the final terms and conditions of any separation and on how best to move forward,, however, at this time, there is a dispute between Stark and Premier pertaining to the Zulu Plant Performance. Premier fully reserves its rights in this regard,” reads part of the update.

Premier African Minerals chief executive officer, Mr George Roach, said this is “a major turning point.”

“As is apparent from the points above, this has been a dramatic week, but a necessary one. On the one hand, Premier is obviously disappointed with the further delays, but Premier is pleased with the ability displayed by our engineering team to take on plant operations and demonstrate the skills we have in our team.

“Premier is encouraged by the response we have had from OEM suppliers and their commitment to ensure their equipment is optimised to the maximum. As Premier stated on 29 February, we are getting there. Not as quickly as Premier had hoped and with more unnecessary issues than we had anticipated.

“Premier does believe this is a major turning point and we look forward to providing further updates from Zulu.”

The Zulu engineering team has taken over as operator with responsibility to deal with outstanding plant issues.

In August last year, Premier announced the temporary suspension of operations at Zulu to pave the way for the planned installation and commissioning of a mill from the RHA Tungsten project.

The company hinted at a revised product delivery schedule agreed at an initial rate of 1 000 tonnes of product shipped to Canmax Technologies Co Limited by the end of November last year.

According to the update, Premier has engaged a major independent EPCM contractor to undertake a complete survey and review of the plant as installed.

The firm noted that the plant is operational and Premier will focus on achieving the design through                                                                                    put and standards with the assistance as needed of the various OEMs.

A complete clean-out of the float section of the plant is underway to ensure that material inadequately treated before the remedy of the pH related problems is removed from the plant.

It added that recently produced concentrates are adversely affected by the pH issues, however, spodumene concentrate floated in the main plant on March 12 is now at SC6 grade.

Mining is now closely supervised, and a team has been appointed to inspect ROM pad ore for any waste contamination.
In 2022, Canmax Technologies Co Limited provided US$35 million in pre-funding to enable the construction and commissioning of a large-scale pilot plant.

Canmax is a producer of lithium electric materials and other related products. On completion of the subscription, Canmax will be interested in 17,4 percent in the enlarged issued share capital of Premier.

After missing production timelines in June last year, Premier Africa Minerals issued a force majeure notice to China’s Canmax Technologies citing unforeseen operational hurdles encountered at its Zulu Lithium plant.

This meant that it could not supply spodumene concentrate to Canmax as per the set timelines stipulated in the offtake agreement.

Force majeure is a clause in contracts that essentially frees both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance is beyond the control of the parties.

The plant was said not to be able to produce sufficient spodumene to meet the quantities of the off-take agreement with Canmax.
Canmax wanted to terminate the agreement, a development that could have negatively affected the Zulu Lithium project.
But after extensive talks, the agreement was back in line.

Lithium (Li) is recovered from minerals such as spodumene, petalite and lepidolite as well as lithium-rich brines and is used in a range of products such as ceramics, glass, batteries and pharmaceuticals.

Lithium use has expanded significantly in recent years due to the increasing use of rechargeable batteries in portable electronic devices and batteries and electrical motors for hybrid and electrical motor vehicles.

Lithium grades are normally presented in percentages or parts per million (ppm). Grades of deposits are also expressed as lithium compounds in percentages, for example as a percent lithium oxide (Li2O) content or percent lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) content.

However, last year, the mineral saw its prices plummet on international markets due to oversupply fears and slow industrial growth.

The drop in global lithium prices was also due to raw material providers who invested heavily in lithium mines in the past two years to meet growing demand; however, they outproduced the current demand.

As a result, lithium prices crashed last year by over 80 percent to the lowest level since 2020, at US$13 200 per tonne in 2023.