Core Lithium achieved record quarterly shipments of spodumene concentrate in the June 2024 quarter, among other highlights.
The lithium miner seems to have bounced back after it experienced a “challenging” March quarter, which saw the suspension of early works at the BP33 project and mining activities at the Grants open pit in the Northern Territory due to a fall in lithium prices.
While production was paused, Core Lithium continued to process ore stockpiles.
During the June quarter, the company shipped 33,027 dry metric tonnes (dmt) of spodumene concentrate and 19,771dmt of lithium fines, with its 2023–24 financial year (FY24) spodumene concentrate sales of 97,423dmt exceeding its revised guidance of 80,000–90,000dmt.
Core Lithium produced 95,020dmt of spodumene concentrate at an average grade of 4.8 per cent for FY24, exceeding the revised guidance of 90,000–95,000dmt, and 19,771dmt of lithium fines at a 1.3 per cent grade.
The June quarter also saw Core Lithium appoint Paul Brown as its new chief executive officer, following Gareth Manderson’s resignation in March, as well as the permanent appointment of James Virgo as chief financial officer.
“I would like to commend the team on the operational performance in FY24, particularly the safe and orderly cessation of production activities at Finniss while achieving record production and shipments,” Brown said.
“This will help preserve the company’s strong financial position, where we finished FY24 with an unaudited cash balance of $87.6 million and no debt.”
During FY25, Core Lithium will prioritise the safe preservation of the Finniss assets, with restart assessments currently underway. The company is also assessing ways to improve costs and product quality of its future operations and has plans to explore the Shoobridge, Finniss and Napperby tenements that are prospective for lithium, gold and uranium.
“Our commitment is to judiciously protect our balance sheet by reducing costs across the organisation and making prudent investments in our assets where we believe it can grow shareholder value,” Brown said.
“Central to this is putting Finniss in a position where operations can rapidly resume with minimal capital. This would only occur when we are confident the lithium market conditions support such a decision.
“Our strategic focus will be on making Finniss a more robust operation in the future, and exploration is a key enabler of this. In FY25, we will be drill testing priority targets around Finniss, potentially adding meaningful life to future lithium mining operations.”
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