Premier African Minerals is raising approximately £1.25 million through the issuance of about 781.25 million shares at 0.16p each.
The funds will be used for ongoing mining operations at its Zulu lithium and tantalum project in Zimbabwe, as well as for working capital purposes.
“We are encouraged by the mining operations and the run-of-mine ore grades that consistently exceed our resource estimate, mitigating the ore sorter deficiencies for the moment.
This also supports a review of overall operations and production costs, likely reducing production costs,” comments CEO George Roach.
In March, Premier replaced the original contractor at the Zulu plant. While the flotation circuit is now capable of running consistently and stably, it will take time to fully address the original design deficiencies and transition from interim fixes to a final operating plant.
Extensive ore sorting test work will soon begin, and replacement ore sorters will be considered thereafter. “It remains our preferred outcome that the original supplier resolves this,” the company states.
Additionally, the company has installed a header box and gravity feed arrangement for hydrosizers at the plant.
While some optimization is still required, the initial operation suggests that the plant can run on a single hydrosizer, leading to better optimization of the mill.
This arrangement has unexpectedly increased the overall plant capacity for the crushers, milling, and sizing circuit, allowing for a substantial increase in throughput at a lower cost than would have been possible with an additional mill.
Dense media separation-based test work on the undersized ore fraction being stockpiled has been completed, and laboratory results are awaited to determine spodumene and tantalum recoverability. Meanwhile, the original equipment manufacturer for the installed magnetic separation system is closely collaborating with Zulu.
“We have a long way to go, but we remain encouraged by the fact that we are producing saleable spodumene.
The design for the additional conditioning circuit required is complete, and most components are either on-site or on order. Premier expects to take delivery of the circuit by the end of June.
“Provided this timeline is met, installation and integration are expected to take an additional 14 days, without impacting normal operations.
This is expected to be the final component needed to achieve recoveries at design capacity,” the company states.
