Piedmont Lithium Ltd (ASX:PLL) will accelerate its lithium hydroxide strategy through the development of its 100% owned Piedmont Lithium Project in North Carolina, US.
The company is accelerating the development of its lithium chemical plant and is compressing its project timeline into a single-stage, targeting lithium chemical production in late-2022.
This new timeline will effectively accelerate chemical plant development by one year while deferring the mine/concentrator construction start date by one year.
The move comes after strong interest was received from prospective lithium hydroxide customers.
Piedmont well-positioned to capitalise on market dynamics
Piedmont’s president and CEO Keith D. Phillips said: “Over the past several months we have engaged in encouraging dialogue with prospective customers throughout the lithium supply chain.
“Themes that are common to all the discussions are:
(a) the dramatic growth in lithium hydroxide required to support the EV platforms currently being developed;
(b) the strong desire of lithium customers to diversify their supply sources away from the dominant China market; and
(c) the concrete plans of selected parties to aggressively develop their battery supply chains in the United States and Europe.
“Nobody is better positioned than Piedmont Lithium to capitalize on these developments.
“Ours is the only spodumene project in the United States, and it is the only US lithium project focused on the fast-growing hydroxide market. We are ideally located to serve the rapidly growing battery supply chains in both the United States and Europe.”
Focused on near-term milestones
Piedmont is focused on a number of near-term milestones in the December quarter including key federal permits for the mine and concentrator and lithium hydroxide test work commencing.
Also, the chemical plant pre-feasibility study (PFS) is expected in the June quarter of 2020.
The company is well funded with US$14 million cash to accelerate the work required to commence construction of the integrated lithium hydroxide project.