JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Australian diversified resources company Reed Resources, along with its joint-venture partner Mineral Resources, on Thursday reported that it continued to advance the Mount Marion lithium project, in Western Australia, towards a 2010 production start-up.

Metallurgical test work at the project was yielding positive results, and a resource definition drill programme was currently under way to extend the resource estimate.

Mineral processing firm Como Engineers have supervised test work to confirm the recovery of spodumene from conventional heavy liquid separation on crushed ore. The current test work programme was performed on bulk samples from exploration winzes sunk into the No 1 and No 2 deposits at Mount Marion and were crushed to P100 8 mm before single‐pass testing.

Previous beneficiation test work conducted as part of the prefeasibility study undertaken by previous owners, Associated Minerals, in 1996 recovered 24% of the original mass of ore from the No 1 deposit into a concentrate grading 6,5% lithium. The current planned production rate assumes a mass recovery of some 20% into a concentrate grading +6,5% lithium.

Reed Resources has now started Phase 1 of its resource definition drill programme, targeting a mineral resource of between seven-million and eight-million tons of spodumene pegmatite at a grade of between 1,3% and 2,0% lithium. The drilling was expected to be completed by the end of November.

The potential quantity and grade of the exploration target was conceptual in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define it as a mineral resource and that it was uncertain if further exploration will result in the determination of a mineral resource, Reed Resources stated.