JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Lithium explorer Birimian has received commitments from investors to raise A$12-million for its Goulamina lithium project, in the Bougouni region of Mali.
Birimian, which has a listing on the ASX, said on Friday that the placement at A$0.38 a share was “heavily oversubscribed”.
Chairperson James McKay said that the support for the subscription was a positive affirmation of the company’s executive team and its development strategy.
The junior will be using the funds to advance work programmes focused on resource expansion, completion of a revised prefeasibility study (PFS), for a definitive feasibility study and general working capital.
An October 2017 PFS demonstrated that Goulamina could be a potentially robust project, based the current indicated mineral resource. Birimian is expanding the resource through a drilling programme focusing on the Yando, Sabali and Danaya targets, where shallow-hole drilling results delineated additional lithium-bearing pegmatite anomalies.
Should the drilling programme enhance the mineral resource, Birimian will redefine the preferred development strategy for the project.
The PFS considered four development scenarios, based on the size of the pit design combined with varying throughput options. These scenarios included a one-million-tonne-a-year operation, a two-million-tonne-a-year operation, a hybrid option starting at a one-million-tonne-a-year throughput for the first four years of production after which it would increase to two-million tonnes a year.
The estimated capital cost to develop the Goulamina project ranges between $86.9-million and $142-million, with the net present value ranging between $85.6-million and $126.4-million. The PFS also estimated that subject to the development option preferred, the project life could range between 9 and 14 years, with the mine processing between 14-million tonnes and 20.6-million tonnes of ore.