GCIAtlantic Lithium expands drilling programme, reports more high-grade results at Ewoyaa
() , an Africa-focused lithium explorer, announced the addition of 8,000m of planned drilling, targeting resource growth at its flagship Ewoyaa lithium project in Ghana. Additionally, Atlantic announced further assay results from the site.
The additional 8,000m of resource drilling represents a 43% increase to Atlantic's 2023 work programme at Ewoyaa, targeting resource growth after last month's historic grant of a Mining Lease for the project. The planned 18,500m programme thus increases to 26,500m, targeted for completion in Q2 2024.
Atlantic also detailed further results from the already completed 16,164m of the programme. The new results come from 2,362m of resource and metallurgical reverse circulation (RC) and diamond core (DD) drilling, with high-grade intersections reported at the Ewoyaa Main, Anokyi and Ewoyaa South-2 deposits. Highlights include:
GDD0105: 47.6m at 1.25% Li2O from 65.7m; GDD0107C: 53m at 0.93% Li2O from 30m; GDD0109: 28.7m at 1.51% Li2O from 79.3m; GDD0104: 28.2m at 1.23% Li2O from 81.2m; GDD0106: 22.4m at 1.07% Li2O from 34m; and GDD0110: 14m at 1.46% Li2O from 33m.
The reported assay results extend mineralisation at the Main deposit outside the current 35.3Mt @ 1.25% Li2O Ewoyaa MRE.
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More good news from Ewoyaa as Atlantic adds 8,000m of planned drilling to its work programme, bringing the total to 26,500m to be completed by Q2 2024. The extension is intended to grow the Ewoyaa resource and follows the historic grant of a Mining Lease to Ewoyaa by the government of Ghana that made Atlantic the first company to be granted permission to mine lithium in the country.
Atlantic also shared impressive new assay results from the ongoing work programme, detailing multiple high-grade and broad infill itnersections from the Ewoyaa Main, Anokyi and Ewoyaa South-2 deposits, increasing confidence in the current resource and extending mineralisation beyond the resource envelope in hole GDD0093.
Ewoyaa has robust economics as one of the lowest capex and opex hard lithium projects globally - with strong commercial metrics and profitability potential for a 2.7Mtpa operation, producing a total of 3.6Mt of spodumene concentrate (approx. 350,000tpa) over a 12-year mine life (LOM).
Specifically, per Ewoyaa's updated definitive feasibility study (DFS), the project boasts a post-tax NPV8 of US$1.3bn, with free cash flow of US$2.1bn from LOM revenues of US$6.6bn and average LOM EBITDA of US$280m per year. C1 cash operating costs are estimated at US$377/t of concentrate Free-On-Board Ghana Port, after by-product credits, with an AISC of US$675/t.
Ewoyaa's development cost is estimated at US$185m. The project continues to gain funding, as existing US-based partner Piedmont recently committed US$70m and 50% thereafter of the total capex, and Ghana's Mineral Income Investment Fund provisionally agreed to invest US$32.9m. Atlantic has also commenced an offtake partnering process with a "major investment bank", aiming to attract offers to further expediate and derisk the project. As it stands, once in production Atlantic will own 40.5% of Ewoyaa, Piedmont will own an equal 40.5%, Ghana's Mineral Income Investment Fund will own 6%, and the government of Ghana will own 13%.
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