The Manono Project lays within the mid-Proterozoic Kibaran Belt, an intracratonic domain stretching for over 1,000km through Katanga and into southwest Uganda.

The Kibaran belt comprises a sedimentary and volcanic sequence that has been folded, metamorphosed and intruded by at least three separate phases of granite. The latest granite phase (900 to 950MA) is assigned to the Katangan cycle and is associated with widespread vein and pegmatite mineralization containing tin, tungsten, tantalum, niobium, lithium and beryllium. Deposits of this type occur as clusters and are widespread throughout the Kibaran terrain. In the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), the Katanga Tin Belt stretches over 500km from near Kolwezi in the southwest to Kalemie in the northeast comprising numerous occurrences and deposits of which the Manono deposit is the largest known.

The presence of lithium mineralisation in pegmatites at Manono has been confirmed to extend along strike of for more than 13km.

Two large areas of pegmatite have been identified, with the northeast area, referred to as the Manono sector and the southwest area, referred to as the Kitotolo sector. Mapping within the two sectors has established that there are many pegmatites, representing separate intrusions, including six large pegmatites.

The large pegmatites all contain spodumene mineralisation. The majority of the smaller pegmatites also contain spodumene and in some cases other lithium minerals. The two largest pegmatites (known as the Carriere de L’est Pegmatite and the Roche Dure Pegmatite) are each of similar size or larger than the famous Greenbushes Pegmatite in Western Australia.

The Roche Dure Pegmatite has a proven length of at least 2,100m. Drill-holes MO17DD001 and MO17DD002 are centrally located within an 800m long interval in which the Roche Dure Pegmatite’s average true thickness is interpreted to be 200m and drilling has proven the pegmatite extends down-dip more than 250m and remains open. Secondary mineralisation in the form of tin and tantalum should not be discounted either.

The Mpete Pegmatite is estimated to have a strike length of 1km and the Tempete Pegmatite is estimated to have a strike length of 1.5kms. Both pegmatites are potentially large sources of lithium mineralisation within the Kitotolo sector.

The Carriere de L’Est Pegmatite, with a length of about 5,500m, is the largest pegmatite in the Manono Project. Assay results from drill-hole MO17DD007 confirmed the mineralisation distribution and tenor evident from the spodumene present in the drill-core. Sampling commenced at 1.9m from which depth the pegmatite is unweathered. The thickness of intersected pegmatite and the geometric relationship between the location of the drill hole and mapped pegmatite boundaries suggests the thickness of the pegmatite may be 280m.

A conventional open pit shovel and truck method will be used for the mining of sufficient ore to supply 2 Mtpa of ore throughput. It has been assumed that the mining functions of the operation will be carried out by contract miners. Equipment required will include two to three excavators, up to 8 ore trucks, associated dozers and graders and support equipment. Ore will be blasted and loaded into trucks for transport to the process plant which will be located within 1.5km of the main pit.

The 2Mtpa base case plant flowsheet is based on unit operations that are well proven in industry, including three stage crushing, dense media separation, milling, magnetic separation and flotation. The key criteria for equipment selection are suitability for duty, reliability and ease of maintenance. The plant layout will provide ease of access to all equipment for operating and maintenance requirements whilst maintaining a compact footprint that will minimise construction costs.

The process plant will operate continuously (24 hours per day, 365 days per year) with a mechanical availability of 65% for the crushing plant and 85% for the treatment plant. Shutdowns for routine maintenance will occur as required.

In more detail the plant design consists of a 2 Mtpa dense media separation (DMS), flotation spodumene plant and consists of the following unit operations:

- Three stage crushing and screening circuit utilising an high pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) as the tertiary crusher to produce a final crushed product with a P100 of 3.35 millimetre (mm).

- A scalping screen to separate crushed ore to ±0.5 mm.

- Two stage DMS cyclone circuit on the +0.5mm material to produce the following streams:
- 2.7 SG DMS floats (reporting to tailings)
- 2.95 SG DMS floats (combining with the-0.5mm material in the milling circuit).

- DMS sinks (forming part of the final concentrate).

- Ball milling and classification circuit, with a final grind size of P80 of 180 µm.

- Magnetic separation circuit, removing waste magnetic material before flotation.

- Magnetic separation circuit, removing waste magnetic material on the DMS sinks final concentrate.

- Rougher, cleaner and recleaner flotation cells producing a spodumene flotation concentrate.

- Concentrate thickener and pressure filter for reducing moisture in the spodumene flotation concentrate prior to shipping offsite.

- A tailings thickener to increase the pulp density to 60% prior discharge to a tailings storage facility (TSF) in future phases of work the need for a tailings thickener should be further considered.

- Reagents storage, mixing and dosing and water storage to support the process.