Aim-listed Kodal Minerals’ maiden shipment of 28 950 t of lithium spodumene concentrate (vessel capacity) has completed loading onto a dedicated bulk cargo vessel at the Port of San Pedro, in Côte d’Ivoire.

The vessel arrived on November 9 and the loaded vessel subsequently departed on November 30, bound for the destination port in Hainan province, China.

Following completion of loading, Kodal’s Mali-registered mining company, Les Mines de Lithium de Bougouni (LMLB), will submit an invoice for the initial 95% of the cargo value with the offtake partner, Hainan Mining.

LMLB is a subsidiary of Kodal Mining UK, in which Kodal has a 49% shareholding.

LMLB is subsequently due to receive the first payment from this shipment for a total expected value of about $24-million.

The focus of LMLB’s operations over the recent weeks has been the transport of over 30 000 t of lithium spodumene concentrate from the Bougouni lithium project in Southern Mali to its dedicated stockpile facility at the Port of San Pedro, an about 880 km road journey, ahead of first shipment.

This successful transport operation, as well as the subsequent loading and departure of the vessel from the port, highlights the effectiveness of the transport route, Kodal Minerals avers.

To date, the Stage 1 dense media separation (DMS) processing plant at Bougouni has produced over 45 000 t of lithium spodumene product, grading an average lithium oxide content of 5.39%.

“The completion of the loading and the departure of our first shipment of lithium spodumene concentrate to our joint development and offtake partner, Hainan, is a major milestone for our team and will result in the receipt of the first revenues from the project,” Kodal Minerals CEO Bernard Aylward highlights.

“Additionally, the significant improvement in the lithium pricing environment in recent weeks will be reflected in the sale price for our spodumene concentrate as per the terms of the offtake agreement.

“The final sale price for the lithium spodumene product will be adjusted to account for the actual grade and quality of product delivered and deducting the cost of sea freight, the company expects the price to exceed $930 per dry metric tonne of spodumene concentrate,” he informs.

“I would like to thank all of our stakeholders who have made this critical step possible – our loyal shareholders, dedicated workforce, supportive Malian stakeholders, including the Malian government, the office of the governor of the Bougouni region and the entire Bougouni community, many of whom are among the 650-strong team on site at Bougouni.

“Additionally, I would like to thank Hainan for its unwavering support of the project as our joint development and offtake partner, without which today’s momentous achievement would not have been possible,” Aylward adds.

Construction on the Bougouni project started in mid-2024 and the mine has produced over 45 000 t of spodumene to date.

The Stage 1 DMS processing plant processes coarse-grained spodumene material sourced from the Ngoualana mine, with a planned feed of one-million tonnes a year of lithium ore into the DMS processing plant.

The project is the second-only lithium mine in Mali.