JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Exploration company Kodal Minerals has requested a temporary withdrawal from the planning process for its noncore Kodal phosphate and titanomagnetite project in southern Norway, to prioritise development of its recently acquired high-grade lithium projects in Mali and its wider gold portfolio in West Africa.
The Kodal project had been fully impaired by the company in its financial statements for the year ended March 31, in response to the dramatic fall in the iron-ore price.
Kodal has now determined to withdraw from the planning process so as to avoid expending further management time or incurring additional costs. The company has written to the relevant municipalities requesting a temporary withdrawal from the planning process on the basis that the project is not currently economically viable and that this is unlikely to change in the short term.
The licences remain valid until July 2023 and the company may seek to restart the process if the economics of the project improve in the future.
CEO Bernard Aylward said the excitement around, and potential value of, the recently acquired lithium assets in Mali, combined with the continued low iron-ore price, had prompted this pragmatic decision from the board.
“We are now directing the majority of the company’s capital and management time towards West Africa and the areas of the business, which we believe hold the most near-term value for shareholders and we look forward to providing news from this core portfolio of assets in due course.”
MALI PROJECTS
The Bougouni lithium project, comprising the recently acquired Kolassokoro and Medina licences, contains identified high-priority exploration targets within a 500 km2 contiguous land package.
Results from geological reconnaissance conducted on the two concessions, has highlighted the existence of multiple pegmatite veins with high-grade lithium mineralisation of up to 2.2% lithium oxide.
Kodal currently also operates its Mali gold projects under joint ventures with major mining and exploration companies Resolute Mining and Newcrest Mining.
This includes the Nangalasso project, which comprises two options over granted concessions extending over an area of 345 km2.
Exploration activity completed to date has highlighted an extensive zone of surface gold anomalism, and the wide spaced reconnaissance drilling has indicated that primary gold mineralisation is associated with the anomalism.
The next phase of exploration for the Nangalasso project will be to complete further trenching to assist in the definition of drill targets and complete follow-up drilling.