PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Joint venture partners Sayona Mining and Piedmont Lithium have announced the restart of commercial spodumene concentrate production at the North American Lithium (NAL) project, in Quebec.

NAL produced its first spodumene concentrate at the start of March this year, with first shipments expected in July.

Piedmont said on Friday that the $80-million restart of NAL was completed on time and on budget, and marked the only major source of new spodumene production expected in North America within the next two years.

“We applaud the work of the operating team in bringing the restart of NAL to fruition. This marks an exciting milestone not only for Piedmont Lithium and Sayona Mining, but the North American market for which we are working to supply critical lithium resources,” said Piedmont president and CEO Keith Phillips.

“NAL is positioned to be a key contributor to the electric vehicle and battery supply chains as demand for lithium continues to expand along with the electrification economies in both Canada and the US.”

An earlier prefeasibility study (PFS) estimated that the 1.5-million-tonne-a-year NAL operation could deliver 4.4-million tonnes of spodumene concentrate over a mine life of 27 years.

Sayona is targeting an expansion of NAL’s future mine production capacity following the recent acquisition of 48 new claims spanning nearly 2 000 ha, located adjacent to the NAL operation.

Sayona MD Brett Lynch said that since announcing the restart intentions in 2021, the company’s project team had maintained a forward-looking focus to improve lithium capture, achieve more consistent run times and streamline operating costs from the past-producing operations.

“Improvements were made as planned in our timeline and budget, and we are eager to see the impact the upgrades bring to both product quality and operational efficiency as we prepare for our first commercial shipments of spodumene concentrate expected in July of this year.”

A PFS is under way to evaluate downstream production at NAL through the completion of the project’s lithium carbonate plant, which was partially constructed by prior owners. The results of the study are expected in the first half of this year.