The Kathleen Valley Lithium Project is located on the western edge of the Norseman-Wiluna Belt within the Archaean Yilgarn Craton, approximately 400km north of Kalgoorlie. The lithium mineralisation is hosted within spodumene-bearing pegmatites, which are part of a series of LCTtype rare metal pegmatites that intrude mafic and sedimentary rocks in the region.

Seventeen mineralised pegmatites have been identified at the Kathleen Valley Project hosted by two, outcropping, NW/SE trending pegmatite swarms – a shallowly-dipping, north-eastern swarm (Kathleen’s Corner), which contains approximately 80% of the pegmatites, and a steeper dipping south-western swarm (Mt Mann). The two swarms are interpreted to merge at depth to form a single, thick, moderately dipping mineralised body which remains open down-dip and along strike.

The deposit is located in a well-established mining region and in close proximity to existing transport, energy and camp infrastructure. It is considered that the classified portion of the deposit has reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction.

At Kathleen’s Corner, 11 sub-horizontal pegmatites (dip of 0° to -10° to west) have been drilled over an area of 1,000m by 1,100m. These pegmatites outcrop in the north-east, are up to 40m thick with an average thickness of 5m and extend down-dip for 850-950m where they merge with Mt Mann pegmatites at approximately 250-300m below surface to form a single, thick (35-75m) mineralised body.

In addition, there are four moderately dipping (-15° to -45° to the west) pegmatites up to 9m thick with an average thickness of 3m.

At Mt Mann, two steeply-dipping (-70° west) pegmatites have been drilled over a strike length of 1,000m and to a vertical depth of 390m. Each of the two pegmatites are up to 35m thick and have an average thickness of 13.5m and 11m respectively.

Mineralisation interpretation was based on a combination of geology logging (identification of pegmatite with spodumene) and assay data. A nominal grade of 0.4% Li2O was used for definition of the mineralised pegmatites.

Additional Ta2O5 mineralisation is present in pegmatite that is external to the mineralisation defined by the lithium oxide. Liontown is intending to investigate this and update the Resource estimate for tantalum pentoxide and low grade lithium oxide once geological interpretation of the pegmatite with tantalum pentoxide has been completed.

The mineralisation at Kathleen Valley extends from surface, is largely shallowly dipping and would be largely suitable for open-pit mining.

Orelogy Consulting Pty Ltd (Orelogy) carried out an open pit optimisation and mining schedule study on the Mineral Resource to determine the appropriate scale of the operation. It has been assumed that Kathleen Valley will be a contract mining operation.

The optimisation concluded that the pit shells are similar for both a 1.5Mtpa and 2Mtpa option, and therefore a 2Mtpa plant has been selected for the Scoping Study as it returns the highest value.

The Scoping Study assumes that head grades will be diluted approximately 10% (to 1.26% Li2O and 154ppm Ta2O5) due to waste or sub-grade material being excavated along with ore during mining.

The mining schedule has been developed in seven stages to maximise the back-filling of the two pits, wherever possible. It is proposed that the northern pit will be back-filled completely and the northern section of the southern pit.

The Kathleen Valley Project process plant consists of a mineral processing concentrator with associated services and ancillaries. The plant has been designed using robust equipment and processes. The process facilities include:

• Three-stage crushing;
• Two-stage dense media separation to produce a primary concentrate, a coarse tail and a middling product for further treatment;
• Ball milling of the middling product;
• Low and high intensity magnetic separation to remove ferrous impurities;
• Three-stage flotation to produce a fine concentrate and fine tails;
• Rod milling and gravity/magnetic separation to produce a tantalum concentrate;
• Thickening and filtration of the concentrate;
• Coarse and fine tails disposal; and
• Reagents and Services.