High Grade and Low Impurity, Premium Spodumene Concentrate Produced from Mavis Lake

Lithium development company, Critical Resources Limited (ASX:CRR) (“Critical Resources” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce that exceptional grade, low-impurity, coarse spodumene concentrate has been produced from its 100%-owned Mavis Lake Lithium project in Ontario, Canada.

Highlights

• First tranche of metallurgical test work, utilising simple Heavy Liquid and Magnetic Separation processes, deliver excellent concentrate results up to 6.42% Li2O
  
• High lithium grades coupled with extremely low impurities (0.37% Fe2O3) demonstrates excellent potential for Mavis Lake to produce premium quality concentrate
• Initial results are another milestone in fast-tracking potential project development
• Metallurgical test work continues to advance with further heavy liquid separation processing and sighter flotation test work
• Results to form the basis of Scoping Study work into the Mavis Lake Lithium Project, due for completion mid-CY2023

“The initial concentrate results are excellent, highlighting the growing potential and significant opportunity for the development of Mavis Lake.

Metallurgical test work is a key step in advancing Mavis Lake along the development pathway. The results show that the high-grade mineralisation at Mavis Lake, readily converts to high-grade, low impurity concentrate. Concentrate with this type of specification, commands a premium in the market.

This has been achieved through a very simple flowsheet that has the potential to enhance project development and delivery opportunities by being low impact, low risk and low cost.”

Test Work Program

The scope of the first tranche of test work was deliberately constrained to basic heavy liquid separation (HLS) and magnetic separation. The purpose of the test work was to provide a preliminary indication of the lithium beneficiation performance by utilising dense media separation (DMS).

HLS test work was undertaken by SGS Canada at their Lakefield facility in Ontario, with supervision in Australia by technical consultants MineScope Services. The sample suite for the test work program, was focused on representative samples from the Mavis Lake mineralised zone.

A total of 50 quarter-and-half core samples, from seven drill holes, were selected to provide a wide range of spatial locations, lithia grades, lithologies, spodumene intersection depths and also account for typical mining dilution. For full details refer to Appendix 1.

The samples were delivered to SGS and compiled to create two composites, being a representative grade composite (SGS assays confirmed 1.2% Li2O) and a high-grade composite (SGS assays confirmed 1.6% Li2O).

Table 1 presents a summary table of the HLS and magnetic separation test results, demonstrating consistently high lithium grade and low iron-oxide impurity across all test streams. The first tranche of testing was deliberately constrained to basic HLS and magnetic separation, with subsequent optimisation and flotation test work now being scheduled. The HLS result shows a strong potential to use DMS as the primary beneficiation method.

Future Work

Further metallurgical test work is being scheduled to test the full potential of lithium liberation from Mavis Lake feed material. This may include HLS test work at finer crush sizes as well as flotation of ground middlings and tailings from raw material crushing/HLS processing.

The Company expects to be able to update the market on further outcomes of the metallurgical test work, including recovery/yield estimates, in the coming months.

The Company has also commenced permitting to allow bulk sample collection which it intends to complete during the Canadian summer. The bulk samples will allow for the conduct of further additional and extensive test work programs aimed at optimising and rigorously testing future flowsheet design.

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