PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Pilbara Minerals has effectively completed a global sales network for its Pilgangoora spodumene-tantalite project, in Western Australia, with the signing on Monday of another memorandum of understanding (MoU) with an international raw materials trading house.
The company now had six offtake MoUs in place with prospective offtake partners and distributors for the low-iron spodumene concentrate to be produced at Pilgangoora.
The offtake MoUs stretched from North and South America, to Europe and Asia.
In addition, Pilbara has also signed four MoUs with Chinese lithium chemical producers for chemical grade spodumene concentrate from Pilgangoora. These initial strategic agreements demonstrated the high level of early-stage interest from customers and potential offtake partners, the company said on Monday.
Under the terms of the latest MoU, the parties have agreed to start formal discussions on a nonexclusive but confidential basis to negotiate an offtake agreement covering the supply of spodumene concentrates, starting in 2017.
The volumes of various grades required and the prices would be negotiated on a yearly basis, based on global market prices, and any offtake agreement would be conditional on Pilbara securing financing to support the development and construction of the Pilgangoora project.
The Pilgangoora project hosts an inferred resource of 10.4-million tonnes, grading 0.024% tantalite, for some 5.5-million pounds of tantalite.