Zimbabwe lithium miners want royalties to be linked to prices
The battery metal has slumped from a peak in late 2022 amid oversupply and weak demand from the electric vehicle sector.
Savannah Resources (AIM: SAV), the British company behind the Barroso lithium project in Portugal, said on Thursday that drilling results show reserves are richer than previously thought.
The company’s technical director, Dale Ferguson, said test results from eight holes across three new areas suggested the potential to expand in “multiple directions”.
“The results we have announced today, which come from holes at Pinheiro, NOA and Reservatório, all confirm the dual potential, highlighted by earlier results, for these orebodies to contain areas of higher-grade mineralization than previously identified.”
With 60,000 tonnes of known reserves, Portugal is already Europe’s biggest lithium producer for the ceramics industry.
The region of Barroso — a Food and Agriculture Organization heritage site — contains one of the world’s richest mineral deposits.
The lithium project, slated to be Western Europe’s largest spodumene lithium mine, has faced opposition from locals and environmentalists through protests, legal challenges, and refusals to sell land. About 24% of the land needed is privately owned, while 75% consists of traditional “baldios”, or common land.
Savannah plans to build four open-pit lithium mines in northern Portugal. The company aims to extract enough lithium annually for 500,000 EV batteries and commence production in 2026.
Barroso is forecasting a throughput of about 1.5 million tonnes a year over the estimated 14-year mine life. The estimation is based on a resource of 20.5 million tonnes at 1.05% lithium oxide.
The project has estimated reserves of 28 million tonnes in high-grade lithium.
(With files from Reuters)
2 Comments
Anna
Your article portrays this project in a positive light, but the local population is strongly opposed to it. They argue it will destroy many livelihoods and bring no benefits to the area or the country. Additionally, several members of the previous government were involved in fraud cases related to this project.
Lepre Chaun
AMG CRITICAL MATERIALS are also Acquires a Strategic Stake in Savannah Resources.