Mineral Resources and partner Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Co are looking for an underground contractor to start development in Q1 next year at their proposed A$490 million Mt Marion lithium expansion project in Western Australia after board approval of the capital spend.
The underground project, suspended in 2024 at low lithium prices, is back on with MinRes also announcing this month it was restarting the 100%-owned Bald Hill lithium mine in WA after it, too, was put on care and maintenance in 2024.
Mt Marion, 40km south-west of Kalgoorlie, started life as an openpit operation in 2016.
The 50-50 MinRes-Jiangxi Ganfeng mine has a 3.5 million tonnes per annum plant able to produce circa-500,000tpa of 6% spodumene concentrate (SC6) at 60% recovery rates. MinRes says a $240 million flotation plant, to be built by its inhouse engineering and construction arm, can increase SC6 production to 600,000tpa and improve average recoveries “towards 70%”.
Underground pre-production development is budgeted at $220 million and MinRes is allocating $30 million for non-processing infrastructure. Underground ore from open stoping is expected to provide up to 40% of Mt Marion’s increased plant throughput beyond targeted commissioning and ramp-up in the second half of the 2028 fiscal year.
MinRes is counting on payback of the project’s $490 million capex in less than a year at the current spot spodumene price of about US$2700/t SC6.
“This high-return brownfield investment sets up Mt Marion for decades to come,” managing director Chris Ellison said.
“Underground mining and flotation will work together to access deeper high-grade ore, lift recoveries and produce a single 5% product.”
MinRes also operates the Wodgina surface lithium mine in WA’s Pilbara region, where it has significant iron ore production capacity.
The ASX-listed company has a current market capitalisation of about $14.4 billion.
