Lepidico Limited
Lepidico Limited, a Lithium chemicals exploration and production company, announced on 20th March 2019 that the company has reached a significant milestone on its Pilot Plant project. The project which is in implementation phase received all major equipment and completed 91% of the construction at the end of February. The company sourced the Lepidolite sample from Alvarroes Lepidolite Mine in Portugal, which also arrived in Perth and now the plant feed preparation has commenced. The remaining equipment and material are scheduled for delivery in March.
As per the company, all major equipment ordered by the company for the Pilot Plant has been delivered to the site in Perth, Western Australia and the frames for the three filters imported from Italy have now cleared customs and arrived at the site. The company committed 91% of the allocated budget till the end of February, and the project continues to track within the budget before contingency.
The Pilot Plant leach circuit skid with leach reactors are installed, and the filter plates are scheduled to be delivered to site in late March. The company received the crystallisers, evaporator and pressure filter ahead of schedule and are now in the process of installation.
The company prepared the laboratory for lithium chemical production and is now waiting for electrical installation, which now represents the critical path for the project.
The stock of the company closed 19.23% up at A$0.031 on 20 March’19.
Independence Group NL
Independence Group NL, another EV trend rider has presented the company’s metal update, which focused mainly on the battery metal Nickel and the Nova Operations of the company. As per the company, the nickel demand is expected to surge with a surge in Electric Vehicle (EV) sales and the challenges of battery chemistry such as maximizing energy density and safety will mark a shift of battery manufacturers towards nickel as high nickel intensity improves energy density in the battery.
Nova Update:
As per the company, Nova exceeded 1.5Mtpa nameplate during the first half of the commercial production and the mine contains high marginal reserve with eight years of mine sustaining life. The company production of nickel is increasing steadily with lower payable on nickel cash cost. The high production from the project was due to the high grades present on the site. To leap in the future of EV market and demand of nickel, the company plans to extend the mineral and ore reserves through exploration.
An investment of A$51 million is already in place by the company for FY19, with A$12.0 million allocated solely for Nova Operations and A$33.0 million allocated for Greenfields to discover the future mines for the company.
The stock of the company closed 1.03% down at A$4.820 on 20 March’19.
PepinNini Lithium Limited
PepinNini Lithium Limited announced that the company would commence brine sampling of the samples collected from the monitoring boreholes of Rincon Project. The company started a resource on the project in 2018, and it will proceed with a re-sampling to validate the lithium concentration of the current resource estimation of the project. The holes which the company drilled for the resource were converted to monitoring wells for the pumping testing of the flow rates on the Salar.
With the battery market expected to surge amid EV trend, different battery material producers are progressing steadily to take the benefit of the bull wave as and when it arrives.
The stock of the company closed flat at A$0.003 on 20 March ’19.
