GCIAtlantic Lithium expands Ghana portfolio with two key licences
() , an Africa-focused lithium explorer, announced it has been granted two new prospecting licenses in the eastern portion of its Cape Coast lithium portfolio in Ghana. The Bewadze and Senya Beraku licences add to the company's flagship Ewoyaa lithium project in the area.
The Bewadze and Senya Beraku licenses cover 6.93km2 and 82.11km2 respectively and were granted to Atlantic's wholly-owned Ghanaian subsidiary Green Metals Resources. The licences are situated within Atlantic's Cape Coast lithium portfolio, with Bewadze along strike and within 300m of the historic Egyasimanku Hill occurrence, where spodumene pegmatites have been observed.
Atlantic said it has planned extensive work programmes to evaluate the potential for lithium and associated minerals at the newly-granted tenure. The licences are crossed by high-voltage transmission lines and located adjacent to the N1 Accra-Takoradi highway - Bewadze within 48km and Senya Beraku within 70km from the Ewoyaa project footprint.
The grant of the Bewadze and Senya Beraku licences follow October's award of a Mining Lease to Ewoyaa by the government of Ghana.
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Atlantic Lithium announced expected new additions to its Cape Coast portfolio in Ghana, following last month's historic grant of a Mining Lease by the government of Ghana that made Atlantic the first company to be granted permission to mine lithium in the country. The award of the new Bewadze and Senya Beraku licences grants Atlantic exclusive access to explore new, undrilled tenure, offering significant potential to enhance the Ewoyaa project's already strong economics.
The Bewadze licence in particular is highly prospective, sitting along strike and within only 300m of the historic Egyasimanku Hill occurrence. Combined with a radiometrics anomaly that runs into the licence, this offers encouraging potential for mineralisation. No previous exploration has been completed at Senya Beraku. Both licences benefit from excellent existing infrastructure, including operational high-voltage lines and the adjacent major N1 highway, providing direct access to Ewoyaa.
The award of the 2 new licences further demonstrates the Ghanaian government's support for the Ewoyaa project and Atlantic Lithium as its key partner to help deliver Ghana's new Green Minerals Policy and establish it as a leading hub in Africa's EV supply chain. Atlantic has a number of licences still under application that are also likely to be granted in the near term, helping grow the Ewoyaa resource further.
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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