Metallurgical testwork on representative composite samples from Aim-listed investment company Armadale Capital’s Mahenge Liandu graphite project, in Tanzania, have been completed, with “highly-encouraging results” confirmed.
Results confirm a high-quality graphite flake of up to 97.1% purity can be produced, reinforcing and validating the project’s economics, the company said on Thursday.
Following completion of the metallurgical testwork, Armadale has, ahead of schedule, moved into plant design work. This is the next critical phase in the project’s development.
Work has already started on designing the mine site layout with locations for the plant, tailings dam, access roads and camp layout largely defined.
Against the technical backdrop, Armadale on Thursday confirmed that it was progressing discussions with prospective Chinese offtake and project finance partners.
Armadale director Nick Johansen said Armadale’s focus this year had been on demonstrating that the company was in the process of transitioning from explorer to emerging producer.
To this end, Johansen said, “it is pleasing to see that [Armadale has] now successfully completed an outstanding metallurgical testwork programme that convincingly demonstrates Armadale can produce a high-quality graphite concentrate”.