Sayona reached an important milestone on Tuesday by shipping a first shipment of spodumene (lithium) concentrate from its North America (LAN) Lithium complex in La Corne, Abitibi.
The 20,500 tonnes of concentrate were loaded aboard the vessel AAL Moon on Tuesday at the Port of Quebec. The spodumene was sold internationally by a high-volume metals and minerals broker. The exact price will be known in the next few days. At a value of US$1,500 per ton of spodumene, the cargo has an estimated value of US$30 million.
“It’s really a great milestone for the team and our partners,” said Guy Belleau, CEO of Sayona, in an interview. It shows that our processes and systems are working well: from mine to port. »
The next delivery of 30,000 tonnes will be sold to Piedmont Lithium, which will ship part of it to its customer LG Chem, according to a statement released by Sayona’s US partner on Tuesday.
LAN has produced 42,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate since the concentrator restarted last March. Ultimately, the complex will have an annual production of 226,000 tonnes of concentrate.
Sayona (75%) and Piedmont Lithium (25%) acquired the assets of North American Lithium (NAL), now Lithium America North, in a legal process on August 1, 2021. NAL had previously placed itself under the protection of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act.
The mine will indeed be in its third life since the beginning of the 2010s. It was operated under the name of Quebec Lithium (2012-2014) then that of North American Lithium (2016-2019). NAL belonged to the Chinese Jien International and CATL.
Today, 300 people work at the LAN complex in La Corne.
Sayona continues on her way to go. At the end of June, it unveiled the results of a preliminary study on the feasibility of a plant to transform spodumene concentrate into lithium carbonate. Carbonate is used as an input for the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries used by electric vehicles.
The study concludes that a production of 23,610 tons per year of lithium carbonate for 16 years is financially viable with an investment of 550 million. It takes about seven tons of spodumene concentrate to produce one ton of lithium carbonate.
The after-tax net present value of the project is estimated at $2 billion based on an average sale price of $34,000 per tonne of carbonate and a discount rate of 8%.
“At that point, we would become the first vertically integrated lithium carbonate producer,” explains Mr. Belleau. From the mine, there would be an initial transformation of the ore into spodumene concentrate. Then the concentrate would be purified to produce lithium carbonate. It would be a great success here, in North America, in Quebec. »
The next step is to produce a definitive feasibility study, which is expected in the second quarter of 2024. Sayona is targeting potential production as early as 2026.
