Core doubles mine life of Finniss lithium project

Finniss’ total ore reserves now stand at 5.7 million tonnes, supporting a seven-year mine life with the prospect of achieving a 10-year mine life, as confirmed in the underground pre-feasibility study.

The underground studies examined underground mining at the Grants, BP33 and Carlton deposits, which are all located within a three-kilometre radius.

Prior studies confirmed three to five years of lithium extraction from open pit mining.

Core Lithium managing director Stephen Biggins said the studies “significantly strengthen” the company’s potential to make Finniss a major and long-term contributor to the Northern Territory’s economy and job market.

“This is a major development for Core. The increase in reserves and mine life allows us the chance to seriously leverage the Finniss project’s strength of location and production capacity to fully embrace such infrastructure as grid connection to power,” Biggins said.

“The updates, along with other key inputs, will be used to update Finniss’ complete feasibility study as we move towards a final investment decision and our goal of being construction ready later this year.”

Back in April, Core Lithium received regulatory project approval from the Northern Territory Government and signed its first European offtake memorandum of understanding with Transamine for 50,000 tonnes per annum.

This is in addition to an existing binding offtake for 75,000 tonnes per annum with one of China’s largest lithium producers, Szechuan Yahua.

Despite doubling the mine life, Core confirmed it would not require substantial increases to the start-up capital to move ahead.