Date: Jan 17, 2019
Perth-based battery metals developer Neometals is progressing its plans to become a fully integrated supplier of downstream lithium products as well as a recycler of used lithium-ion batteries.
It aims to finalise engineering design for its proposed 10,000 t/yr lithium hydroxide plant at Kalgoorlie, as well as advance offtake negotiations and gain necessary development approvals, in 2019.
Linked to the lithium hydroxide plant are plans to fast-track the commercialisation of zeolite production from the plant’s leach residue. Zeolite’s growing global applications include gas cleaning, molecular sieves, catalysts and water removals from gas streams. A pilot plant is planned for commissioning in the second half of the year.
The company will also accelerate plans to find partners and feedstock for its proposed lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Kalgoorlie. A 100 kg/d pilot plant is scheduled to be completed by the end of June, to be followed by the design of a 50 t/d plant.
In a presentation to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Battery & Energy Storage Forum, Neometals said that despite lithium price deterioration and poor sector returns in 2018 “we have strong conviction in the long-term electric vehicle and energy storage systems thematic.”
The company sold its 13.8pc stake in the Mt Marion lithium mine to its partners, Australia’s Mineral Resources and China’s Ganfeng Lithium, for A$104mn ($75mn) towards the end of last year. But it retained its rights to 57,000 t/yr of lithium concentrate, which will comprise most of the feedstock for its lithium hydroxide plant.
