Premier African Minerals Ltd (AIM:PREM, OTC:PRMMF) said it is now in the home stretch of sorting out the snagging issues that have disrupted the ramp-up of its processing plant at the Zulu lithium project in Zimbabwe.
Design issues that affected comminution and material sizing plant components have been identified and material flows from mill discharge to thickener feed are now stable.
Ore grade and contained spodumene in the ore fed to the plant is at grades consistently ranging from 1.1% Li20 to 1.7% Li2O.
Work is now focused on the floatation plant, with changes to the mica section and flows between the various cells now in train.
George Roach, chief executive, added: "Premier believes we are now in the home stretch with commissioning the Zulu plant operation.
“Our team at Zulu and our OEMs should be commended for what has been achieved in the past 5 weeks and Premier looks forward to finally getting this plant over the line.
“We have greater than 1,000 tons of mixed mica rich and spodumene concentrate (not to grade) and with recent price improvements we are exploring ways to commercially release some value for the product available.
“SC6 will be held back until we have sufficient at grade material to ship to our prepayment and off-take partner”