The company expects its half-year profit to fall by as much as 58%

Kloof produces 14% of the miner's gold output.

The now $800 million project 265 km southeast of Nashville would process about 27,000 tonnes a year of the battery metal starting in 2026.

Earlier this month, C-ONE, a private anode materials company based in China, announced that it plans to invest $12.7 million into SRG.

An upside case scenario is also evaluated, with a post-tax NPV of $1.6 billion.

The company is targeting total copper recoveries in the mid-nineties from this breakthrough.

The lithium industry in Africa's top producer has rapidly expanded, buoyed by about $1 billion of investments during the past two years by Chinese companies.

The company plans to start producing 50,000 metric tons of graphite next year in Mozambique.