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Yesterday Lithium Australia announced its intention to make a conditional $23.8 million scrip bid for Lepidico.
Part of the reason behind the Lithium Australia move was to derail a Supreme Court of Western Australia action Lepidico has launched claiming Lithium Australia SiLeach process was developed without authorisation using Lepidico’s intellectual property in its L-Max technology.
Lithium Australia also said it had been negotiating a merger with Lepidico and that its mooted takeover made sense.
Lepidico has asked its shareholders to take no action regarding Lithium Australia’s announcement and confirmed it was not in negotiations over any merger.
While this has been going on, Lepidico received some good news in the form of a letter of intent from Canadian lithium player Avalon that could clear the way for Lepidico to develop its first commercial L-Max processing plant.
Under the non-binding LoI, Avalon proposes selling a minimum 15,000t per annum of lepidolite concentrate produced from its planned demonstration-scale pilot plant to be located in Kenora, Ontario, to Lepidico for processing at its planned Phase 1 commercial lithium carbonate facility.
As part of its Phase 1 pre-feasibility study Lepidico mooted locating its Phase 1 plant in Canada.
As part of that PFS Avalon sent Lepidico lepidolite samples from its Separation Rapids operation about 70km north of Kenora.
Laboratory bench tests using L-Max resulted in the production of battery grade lithium carbonate with 99.88% purity.
“Test work on lepidolite samples from Separation Rapids returned excellent recoveries and produced high specification battery grade lithium carbonate using Lepidico’s L-Max technology,” Lepidico managing director Joe Walsh said.
“The partnership between Avalon and Lepidico provides the opportunity for lepidolite within the Separation Rapids deposit to provide a new source of lithium battery material to the market and also expedite the commercialisation of L-Max.”
If the PFS goes well, Lepidico plans to complete a definitive feasibility study by December.
