West Africa-focused mineral exploration company Kodal Minerals announced its final results for the year ending 31 March 2023 on Wednesday, highlighting progress at its key Bougouni Lithium Project in southern Mali.
Kodal Minerals shares dipped slightly after the announcement as traders booked short-term profits after a decent run in shares over the past week.
Today’s announcement offered very little new information and Kodal Minerals shares will still be dictated by progress in the development of their Bougouni Lithium Project.
The company has agreed a US$117.75 million funding package with China’s Hainan Mining to fully finance the development of the Bougouni Project and bring it into production.
Of the total funds, US$65 million will go towards constructing a Dense Media Separation (DMS) plant at Bougouni targeting first lithium production next year.
The low-cost DMS project has an estimated capital cost of US$65 million and is forecast to generate over US$1 billion in revenue within four years of operation, with payback coming within two months.
Initial production from the 4-year mine life project is projected at over 130,000 tonnes per annum of spodumene concentrate containing lithium.
Additional funds from Hainan will support resource expansion and a future Phase 2 expansion to increase spodumene concentrate production above 300,000tpa.
The Bougouni Lithium Project currently has a JORC compliant resource of 21Mt at 1.11% Li2O lithium oxide.
Kodal has all required permits in place and could begin project development and construction once the financing package with Hainan is completed, for which a long stop date has been set of 30 September 2023.
The long stop date was recently extended to compensate for administrative delays and Hainan completed a pre-payment of US$3.5M in August to fund engineering work.