Galaxy Resources Limited have posted strong production results for lithium at the Mount Cattlin spodumene mine and processing facility in Western Australia. The mine near Ravensthorpe in Western Australia has a spodumene concentrate production of 8,916 wet metric tonnes in the month of July. This is an increase of 25% compared to the month of June.
Spodumene is a pyroxene mineral consisting of lithium aluminium inosilicate, LiAl(SiO3)2, and is a source of lithium. It occurs as colorless to yellowish, purplish, or lilac kunzite, yellowish-green or emerald-green hiddenite, prismatic crystals, often of great size.
The ramping up of the operations at Mount Cattlin are continuing to progress properly with the plant utilization being 16% higher this month at 79%. The operations are currently running on about 70 – 80% of the actual annual capacity of the plant.
Galaxy Resources said that the capacity was likely to be further optimized in coming months as it meets demands. The company hopes to send out a third consignment of spodumene concentrate to China in the month of September. The cargo volume that is expected to be shipped is about 20,000 tonnes. Lithium compounds are likely to be high in demand as they are needed to power the world's fast expanding fleet of hybrid and electric cars.
The company also signed a deal with a large battery manufacturer to produce and market electric bike batteries. It will employ technological expertise and research acumen of K2 Energy to develop a lithium battery plant in China. The managing director of Galaxy Resources Iggy Tan said that if they were just to ship their concentrate out, it was worth just $1 per lithium unit, by converting it to lithium carbonate it was actually worth $3, by converting it to a battery it was actually worth $500 per lithium unit.
Galaxy Resources Limited owns and operated the Mt. Cattlin mine, and has plans to be the world's leading producers of lithium compounds. The Jiangsu lithium carbonate plant, which is under construction at present, will have a design capacity of 17,000 tpa of lithium carbonate. Galaxy expects this would make it one of the largest plants in China converting hard rock lithium mineral concentrates into lithium compounds and chemicals.