Altura Mining readies first shipment of lithium concentrate for China

A key player in the global lithium market has moved closer to making its first shipment of lithium concentrate, following the first production earlier this year.

Altura Mining announced in a statement this week that the company had begun trucking lithium spodumene concentrate from its Altura Lithium Mine to Port Hedland, as it prepares for its first international shipment.

The news comes soon after the company announced that it had achieved commercial production at the site in late July.

Lithium will be shipped to China to offtake partner Lionergy, following an offtake agreement signed earlier this year.

Lionergy has also indicated it would like to receive as much as possible of the 100ktpa minimum supply allocation under the Binding Offtake Agreement (BOA) as production at Pilgangoora ramps up in H2 2018.
 

Related stories:

Lithium in 2018: Has the bubble burst?

Talison Lithium to expand Greenbushes lithium mine in $516 million project

Nemaska Lithium completes CAD $1.1 billion financing package for construction of Whabouchi

Altura’s Managing Director James Brown said the start of haulage was another important step for the Company. “We will continue to focus on working towards this first shipment and subsequent shipments for the remainder of 2018. We remain fully focussed on the ramp-up, so we can get the project operating at its optimum level as soon as possible.”

Altura has contracted Qube Logistics to take responsibility for all logistics from mine to port and the logistics company has started hauling the product to a storage facility with a capacity of 40,000 tonnes.