PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Perth-based lithium developer Cobre Montana has produced its first battery-grade lithium carbonate from the Cinovec project, in the Czech Republic.
The company announced this week that the results, which included leaching and chemical extraction processes, were achieved on a 50 kg sample of ore sourced from the Cinovec deposit.
In December last year, Cobre inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with fellow-listed European Metals to hunt for lithium resource at the Cinovec mine. The agreement would see Cobre undertake testwork to assess the calibre of a Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant inferred resource of 37-million tonnes, grading 0.8% lithium oxide.
Cobre was using the only known processing technology able to extract lithium from micas in this testwork. The technology had earlier been successfully tested at the Lepidolite Hill project, in Western Australia.
The company said this week the lithium results would be included in European Metal’s scoping study for the Cinovec project, which was due shortly.