Originally posted by johnwightman
Hallo Chezd. Unfortunately, the average grade of the tailings, produced in the Haddington era, is only 0.15% Li02, so unfortunately, it will not be economic to process. It is also ultrafine, having been milled through a primary and a secondary mill, so it is about 80% finer than 75 microns. They will never recover more than about 30% of the spodumene, even with the best current flotation practise. I'm not sure if the company will have the funds to even look at putting in the by now, well overdue fines plant. Time will tell!
Hi JW
According to the ASX release dated 24 October 2016 when TAW announced the option to buy into the project they had this to say about the Haddington era of mining:
" Between July 2001 and December 2005 Haddington ResourcesLimited (“Haddington”
undertook shallow open pit mining of pegmatites, a totalof 1.35Mt of ore was processed through a gravity plant with a throughput rateof 340,000tpa. A total 4,000t of concentratecontaining 364t of tantalum pentoxide was sold and the mine was closed afterthe buyer Greenbushes Tin stopped taking third party concentrates. During mining it was noted, that thepegmatite ore contained varying amounts of spodumene (up to 30-50%) thoughlithium was not assayed for nor recovered until AMAL noted high levels ofspodumene in tantalum concentrates during recommissioning of the Haddingtonplant in 2015. "
If lithium was not assayed for nor recovered how do you know that the tailings contain 0.15% LiO2.
The current mine has a cut off grade of 0.3% so if Mark is intending to reprocess the tailings from the Hills End pit then I will put my faith in him that it is economical to do so.
With regards to your comment that you doubt that they have the funds to even put in the fines circuit then you seem to have forgotten that there is a $20 million undrawn funding package from Tribeca that could only be drawn down post merger if required
