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Australia
Mt. Holland Project

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 Location:
368 km E from Perth, Western Australia, Australia

  Project Contacts:
L3, 109 St Georges Tce
Perth
Western Australia, Australia
6000
Phone  ...  Subscription required
WebsiteWeb
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  • Overview
  • Owners
  • Geology
  • Mining
  • Processing
  • Production
  • Reserves
  • Costs & Financials
  • Personnel
  • Filings & News

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Overview

StageConstruction
Mine TypeOpen Pit
Commodities
  • Lithium
  • Spodumene
Mining Method
  • Truck & Shovel / Loader
Processing
  • Filter press plant
  • Purification & crystallization
  • Desliming
  • Reverse osmosis
  • Flotation
  • Leaching plant / circuit
  • Dense media separation
  • Magnetic separation
Mine Life47 years (as of Jan 1, 2018)
Early mining operations began at Mount Holland in early-2022 (Thiess commenced mobilisation and early mining operations in January 2022), courtesy of Thiess, and full production is expected by the second half of 2024.

Construction of the Covalent Lithium’s Kwinana refinery will commence in 2022 and is expected to be completed in 2024.
The refinery will convert lithium concentrate into high-purity lithium hydroxide monohydrate for use in products like lithium batteries to store renewable energy.
Latest NewsDecmil builds lithium sector with Covalent, Talison     April 8, 2022


Owners

Source:
CompanyInterestOwnership
Wesfarmers Ltd. 50 % Indirect
Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. 50 % Indirect
Covalent Lithium Pty Ltd (operator) 100 % Direct
Covalent Lithium Pty Ltd (Covalent) is the manager appointed by a joint venture between subsidiaries of Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile S.A. (SQM) and Wesfarmers Limited to develop and operate the Mount Holland Lithium Project, which will be a unique, fully integrated producer of battery quality lithium hydroxide in Western Australia.

Deposit Type

  • Pegmatite


Summary:

The Earl Grey pegmatite is hosted within a series of steeply dipping ultramafic and mafic rocks of Archaean age. The pegmatite consists of a main tabular body of approximately 1,000m in strike length, over 2,000m in dip extent, and thicknesses of up to 100m. This main pegmatite is flanked by several hanging wall and footwall dykes, and the main body itself branches into multiple dykes at its southern and eastern extents. The pegmatite dips 5-15° to the north west and is slightly offset by several north-south trending fault zones.

The mineralogy of the pegmatite consists of a simple albite-quartz-microcline-spodumene-petalite assemblage with minor biotite, muscovite and tourmaline. The only significant mineralogical variation across the deposit occurs within the lithium aluminosilicates; spodumene, petalite and several alteration phases occur in discrete domains.

Spodumene is present in two forms at Earl Grey; a coarse form produced during initial crystallisation of the melt, and a finer spodumene-quartz intergrowth (SQI) derived from the isochemical inversion of petalite.


Mining Methods

  • Truck & Shovel / Loader


Summary:

The Mount Holland Lithium Project (the project) is an integrated project consisting of a mine, concentrator, and refinery to produce battery quality lithium hydroxide (LiOH) for the international market.

Conventional open pit mining utilising experienced contractors will be adopted at Earl Grey(subject to further study). The mining method was evaluated for a traditional truck and hydraulic excavator (backhoe) operation, combined with suitable drill and blast. The operation evaluated different bench heights in different areas of the pit. In the pegmatite and waste contact zones, mining was determined to be standard 5m benches (2 x 2.5m flitches), and a 10m bench height was assumed for bulk waste mining outside of these zones. Ramp widths were maintained at a nominal 30m. A series of 15 pit designs (staged cutbacks) are planned with mining developing from the initial pits at the south end where the pegmatite comes to surface and proceeding in a northerly direction as the deposit is systematically mined down dip. Equipment (100t-200t excavators loading 100-200t trucks) has been selected and scheduled to meet the 2Mtpa plant throughput. Overall the pit design contained 94.2 million tonnes of ore at 1.5% Li2O and 421 million tonnes of waste at an overall strip ratio of 4.5 to 1.Dump trucks will haul ore to the ROM pad approximately 2km haul from the pit crest to the ROM. After various pit optimisations were performed using the geological block model which supports the Mineral Resource, along with detailed design and scheduling, cash flow modelling and consideration of sensitivities with revenue factors and metallurgical recovery, the contained inventory of plant feed within the pit designs was considered to meet the requirements of an ore reserve. Stage 1 (Proven) is limited to pit 10 where the waste is contained within the area under application for disturbance. Stage 2 (Probable) extends excavation to pit 15 where the boundary of the pit is defined by the economic limits of the predominantly spodumene mineralisation. (Note that the optimisation of the resource focussed on the spodumene zones only, and excluded the petalite and mixed zones which were assumed to have no economic benefit).

The mine plan focussed on minimising land disturbance, with approximately 25% of the waste rock volume as in-pit backfill.

For the purposes of the study, a dilution factor of 104% and mining recovery of 98% have been used. This reflects the broad, well defined and sharp boundaries of the pegmatite/mafic waste rock contacts and has been determined after undertaking a process of regularising the Mineral Resource model using a wide range of block sizes to establish an effective standard mining unit of 5m x 5m x 2.5m. In practical terms detailed grade control will inform the mine planning & geology team to enable them to use non-horizontal and non-constant thickness flitches to expose mineralised pegmatite and mine the pegmatite cleanly will improve these figures.


Crushing and Grinding
Flow Sheet: Source
Crusher / Mill TypeModelSizePowerQuantity
Jaw crusher 1
Cone crusher 1
High Pressure Grinding Rolls (HPGR) 1
Ball mill 2
Ball mill 1

Summary:

The Concentrator will process approximately 2 Mtpa of ore to produce approximately 0.4Mtpa of dry spodumene (5.5 wt% Li2O) over the life of the mine. The Concentrator will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, apart from periods of shut down for maintenance activities.

A two-stage crushing circuit, including a primary and secondary crusher will deliver crushed ore to a coarse ore stockpile.

Tertiary crusher undersize is slurried and pumped to a cyclone. The cyclone underflow feeds a Classifier which classifies at a given size.

The mid-sized DMS material reports to the ball mill feed, while the fines from the Classifier reports to the ball mill discharge hopper. This combined ball mill discharge stream is cycloned with its coarser underflow fraction requiring further grinding being recycled to the ball mill feed. The on-size material is pumped forward to the flotation preparation circuit.

The lithium hydroxide refinery (LHR) will includes two Ball mills, one per each processing train.


Processing

  • Filter press plant
  • Purification & crystallization
  • Desliming
  • Reverse osmosis
  • Flotation
  • Leaching plant / circuit
  • Dense media separation
  • Magnetic separation

Flow Sheet: Subscription required

Summary:

Processing facilities will consists of concentrator plant and a two-processing train lithium hydroxide refinery (LHR) located at city of Kwinana. Plant will treat ore from Mt Holland mine at a rate of 2 million tonnes per annum (tpa).

The Concentrator will process approximately 2 Mtpa of ore to produce approximately 0.4Mtpa
of dry spodumene (5.5 wt% Li2O) over the life of the mine. The Concentrator will operate 24
hours a day, 365 days a year, apart from periods of shut down for maintenance activities.

The Concentrator infrastructure to be constructed includes:
- Run of Mine (ROM) Pad;
- ROM bin;
- Crushing plant circuit;
- Classification and Mica removal circuit;
- Dense media separation (DMS) circuit;
- Grinding and desliming circuit;
- Magnetic material removal circuit;
- Flotation circuit;
- Product handling and storage area;
- Reagent storage areas;
- Reverse osmosis (RO) plant (0.073 Gigalitre ........


Projected Production:

CommodityUnitsAvg. Annual
Lithium dmt 50,276
All production numbers are expressed as hydroxide.

Operational Metrics:

Metrics
Annual processing rate  ......  Subscription required
Annual processing capacity  ......  Subscription required
* According to 2021 study.
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Reserves at December 31, 2018:
Mineral Resources cut-off: 0.5% Li2O

CategoryTonnage CommodityGrade
Proven 54.4 Mt Li2O 1.5 %
Proven 54.4 Mt Fe2O3 1.3 %
Proven 54.4 Mt Ta2O5 45 ppm
Probable 39.8 Mt Li2O 1.5 %
Probable 39.8 Mt Fe2O3 1.4 %
Probable 39.8 Mt Ta2O5 54 ppm
Proven & Probable 94.2 Mt Li2O 1.5 %
Proven & Probable 94.2 Mt Fe2O3 1.4 %
Proven & Probable 94.2 Mt Ta2O5 50 ppm

Commodity Production Costs:

CommodityUnitsAverage
C1 cash costs Lithium USD  ......  Subscription required *†
Assumed price Lithium USD  ......  Subscription required *
* According to 2019 study / presentation.
† Net of By-Product.
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

2018 Study Costs and Valuation Metrics :

MetricsUnitsLOM Total
Total CapEx $M USD  ......  Subscription required
Net revenue (LOM) $M USD  ......  Subscription required
EBITDA (LOM) $M USD  ......  Subscription required
After-tax NPV @ 10% $M USD  ......  Subscription required
After-tax IRR, % $M USD  ......  Subscription required
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Heavy Mobile Equipment:

Mine Management:

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Sep 10, 2021
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Sep 10, 2021
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Sep 10, 2021
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Sep 10, 2021
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Sep 10, 2021
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Sep 10, 2021
Subscription required - Subscription is required.


Corporate Filings & Presentations:

DocumentYear
................................... Subscription required 2021
................................... Subscription required 2021
................................... Subscription required 2020
................................... Subscription required 2019
Corporate Presentation 2018
Pre-Feasibility Study Report 2018
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

News:

NewsDate
Decmil builds lithium sector with Covalent, Talison April 8, 2022
Thiess gets win at Mount Holland lithium March 11, 2022
Civmec makes waves with Covalent contract December 10, 2021
NRW’s Primero wins $290 million contract at Mt Holland September 8, 2021
Wesfarmers Ltd.: Mt Holland lithium project – Ministerial approval July 16, 2021
Wesfarmers takes control of Kidman Resources September 24, 2019
Kidman shareholders give green light for Wesfarmers takeover September 6, 2019

Aerial view:

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