PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Emerging miner Galaxy Resources has started mining at its Mount Cattlin lithium project, in Western Australia, ahead of schedule.

MD Iggy Tan said on Friday that a four-month pre-strip mining period was now on track, and would guarantee supply of run-of-mine ore for the commissioning of the Mount Cattlin processing plant during the third quarter of 2010.

Mount Cattlin will be the world’s second-largest hard rock producer of lithium.

The project involves the mining and processing of pegmatite ore to produce a spodumene concentrate and a tantalum by-product.

Ore processing would be at a rate of one-million tons a year, at an average grade of 1,1% lithium oxide, and would produce about 137 000 t/y of spodumene concentrate at 6,0% lithium oxide and 56 000 lbs/y of contained tantalum in concentrate.

Spodumene concentrate would be transported by train to Esperance to be shipped out through the port of Esperance to Zhangjiagang port in China. 

Tantalum concentrate would be transported to Perth and packaged in 200-l drums before shipment in containers from Fremantle.

The spodumene concentrate would be converted to lithium carbonate at the company's facility close to the Zhangjiagang port, in the Jiangsu province.

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