Pilbara Produces First Coarse Concentrate at Pilgangoora

Straight out of its Pilgangoora lithium-tantalum project in Western Australia comes Pilbara Minerals’ (ASX:PLS) first coarse concentrate, announced by the company on Tuesday (July 24).

The company is progressing with the ramp up of its Pilgangoora project, and just recently achieved successful production of the first coarse concentrate as part of ongoing wet commissioning.

According to the company, both primary sub-circuits — fines and coarse — have been successfully commissioned to the stage of concentrate production.

With the sub-circuits now in operation, the company can move ahead to completing commissioning of the project’s plant; that will be followed by product specification optimization and production ramp up.

Pilbara has seen consistent plant performance thus far, with 1,000 tonnes of coarse and fines concentrate having already been produced.

Fines concentrate is now to undergo final processing through the dressing circuit as part of completing the commissioning process and product specification optimization, making it one of the last sub-systems to be commissioned within the concentrator. The concentrate will be assayed after final commissioning of the spodumene concentrate dressing circuit.

Pilbara Managing Director and CEO Ken Brinsden spoke highly of the project’s progress in a press release, saying the company is on track for its first concentrate shipment to take place in August.

“RCR and Pilbara Minerals’ commissioning teams have done a great job so far, with all of the plant’s components either meeting or exceeding our expectations,” he said.

“The extensive planning and due-diligence undertaken by our engineering, construction and production teams is now well and truly paying dividends as we progressively bring the plant online and ramp-up its capacity. We look forward to the successful delivery of our first high-quality concentrate products to our customers next month,” Brinsden added.

Pilgangoora is Pilbara’s flagship project, and the company refers to it as one of the “world’s premier lithium development projects.”

It acquired the project from Global Advanced Metals in 2014, and has since established an ore reserve estimate of 80.3 million tonnes grading 1.27 percent Li2O (lithia), 123 ppm Ta2O5 (tantalite) and 1.08 percent Fe2O3 (iron oxide).

Pilbara’s share price was sitting at AU$0.995 as of 12:20 p.m. EST on Tuesday. The company’s share price is down 15.68 percent year-to-date but is up 155.13 percent in the last year.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Olivia Da Silva, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.