Developer of lithium project in Canada placed in trading halt in Australia

The developer of the Authier Lithium Project in Quebec, Sayona Mining Ltd (ASX:SYA), requested the Australia Stock Exchange to place its securities in trading halt pending the release of an announcement by management.

“Unless ASX decides otherwise, the securities will remain in trading halt until the earlier of the commencement of normal trading on Wednesday, 18 April 2018 or when the announcement is released to the market,” a statement issued by the exchange reads.

According to Proactive Investors, the announcement is regarding the capital the company needs to raise to complete, by mid-2018, a definitive feasibility study for Authier. “A successful capital raising would assist the company in gaining support from offtake partners,” the financial website states.

Once the FS is done, Sayona will be able to move to the engineering and design stages and advance its plans to complete first production in late 2019 or early 2020.

The Authirer property, located 45 kilometres northwest of the city of Val d’Or, is comprised of 19 mineral claims totalling 653 hectares. Ore Reserves are estimated in 10.2Mt @ 1.02% Li20 based on a JORC Mineral Resource of 13.75Mt @ 1.07% Li20 at 0.5% Li20 cut-off grade. Following a 4,100 metres new drilling campaign carried out in 2017, JORC Mineral Resource was expanded to 17.4Mt @ 1.02% Li20.

Sayona is looking at a simple, low cost, open pit mining operation with an initial 17-year life.