Mozambique forecasts 20% production growth in key mineral for EV batteries
Premier African and its multi-commodity aims in Africa, limestone and forestry in Mozambique
3:43 CAT | 15 Sep 2016
The firm has got multiple projects under many commodities in Africa
As well as RHA and Zulu, the firm has assets in Mozambique and a stake in private firm Circum Minerals Premier African and its multi-commodity aims in Africa.
Clearly the current focus is on lithium, the Zulu project and smallcap investor David Lenigas, but Premier African Minerals Ltd (LON:PREM) is about much more than that.
The firm, according to its website, is developing multi-commodity exploration projects in Africa. It has made some big strides in 2016.
The group runs the RHA tungsten mine in Zimbabwe, where production has started this year, and is on the track towards profitability.
It also has assets in Mozambique and a stake in private firm Circum Minerals, which has a strategic stake in the Danakil Potash project in Ethiopia.
Circum has promised a ‘liquidity event’ sometime soon.
RHA and tungsten prices on the up
The RHA deposit is around 800m in strike length and 300m wide, and the mine uses simple gravity techniques to extract wolframite (tungsten).
There have been issues along the way to get it up and running but these are being resolved, the firm assured.
According to an update in late August, targeted throughput has now been set at 8,000 tons per month at a grade of 6kg per month and with recoveries running at 80%.
The firm says RHA should run profitably with recoveries at 70% and a tungsten price of US$180 per metric tonne unit.
Prices of then metal are running roughly at this level, and these, which is historically low so, once the anticipated upswing, which many predict, comes, the margins at RHA will be considerable.
A limestone deposit in Mozambique….and forestry
The Catapu deposit lies near the railway in the Sofala province, which the firm bought via its purchase of a 52% interest in a Mozambique firm, which also holds a 24,821 ha hardwood forestry concession.
Premier plans to start an initial exploration and assessment work programme on the limestone deposit, which is expected to provide a maiden resource and preliminary scoping study late this year. The exploration programme is fully funded.
In Togo…
Premier has four assets – the Pagala zinc exploration project; the Haito nickel project, the Kara – Niamtougou uranium site and the Dapaong gold project.
Zulu and lithium
Drilling has started at the Zulu project via a 20 hole programme – significantly regarded as potentially the largest undeveloped lithium bearing pegmatite in Zimbabwe, aimed at producing a maiden resource and testing extensions to the 3.5km surface strike length.
Meanwhile, David Lenigas, a veteran of the resource sector and small cap promoter, has been hired as a consultant to carry out an independent review for the project – looking at potential strategic investors or joint ventures as well as financing.
George Roach, Premier’s chief executive, told Proactive, he was very excited at Lenigas’s appointment and believes that Zulu has “world scale potential written all over it”.
House broker Shore Capital noted that so far, lithium-bearing pegmatites have been identified over a strike of around 3.5km to vertical depths of over 200m, with true widths of 10-25m.
“On the basis of historical and more recent work by the company, PREM believes (quite reasonably, in our opinion) that Zulu has ‘company making’ potential, with a potential scale comparable with that of other world-class spodumene/pegmatite deposits,” it added.
Also worth noting in Zimbabwe, the firm has the Katete project comprises 25 claim blocks prospective for Rare Earth Elements (REE). It is also investigating a 1,350-hectare area centred on the dormant Tinde Fluorspar mine and has the Lubimbi rare earth project.
Source: Proactive Investors
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