PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The share price of ASX-listed Argosy Minerals increased by more than 5% at the close of business on Thursday after the company announced the start of lithium pilot plant operations at its Rincon lithium project, in Argentina.
Argosy has started continuous industrial-scale pilot plant lithium processing trial-run operations, which the company said would ensure a smooth transition to regular pilot plant lithium carbonate production, which is set to start in early July, and which will produce 99.5% lithium carbonate product.
The industrial-scale pilot plant was first commissioned in April of last year, with first battery-grade lithium carbonate product confirmed in August, with a sales agreement executed in March this year.
“We are excited to commence operations to produce a 99.5% lithium carbonate product from our industrial-scale pilot plant, thus being the only recent lithium company to achieve this in South America, and becoming a small-scale lithium carbonate producer,” said Argosy MD Jerko Zuvela.
“This further validates our fast-track development strategy and proves our successful chemical processing capabilities, of which none of our lithium brine peers are yet to deliver.”
In parallel with the pilot plant operations, Argosy would continue progressing towards the 2 000 t/y modular operation as the next step to scale up the development of the Rincon project.