PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Lithium miner Galaxy Resources has reported a record month of production at its Mt Cattlin operation, in Western Australia, with the project producing 21 910 t of lithium concentrate in April.
The April production represented an annualised run rate of some 260 000 t/y.
Galaxy reported an average final product grade of 5.92% lithium oxide, compared with the 5.75% reported in the first quarter of this year.
“Following a comprehensive review of operations in the latter part of 2018, the team at Mt Cattlin focused on operational improvements and an efficient ramp-up of the newly installed yield optimisation circuits (YOP) throughout the start of 2019,” said Galaxy CEO and MD Anthony Tse on Monday.
“Management has concentrated on cost reduction, together with the YOP efficiency and I am pleased to report that this effort has resulted in the strongest month at Mt Cattlin, both in terms of production output and product quality, since the Mt Cattlin operation were recommissioned at the end of 2016.”
Tse said that aside from quality, the continued reduction in unit production costs would ensure that Galaxy had a competitive advantage, allowing the company to continue delivering a healthy operational cash margin, despite the recent softening of lithium feedstock and chemical pricing.