Canada Lithium Corp. announced that commissioning has commenced at its open-pit mine and processing facility near Val d’Or, Québec. During the month of November, approximately 12,000 metric tons (mt) of ore and 380,000 mt of waste were mined. The ore has been crushed and stockpiled, while the waste material is predominantly being used to construct the Tailings Management Facility.
During December, commissioning of the concentrator has been ongoing. All major circuits, comprising crushing, conveying, ore storage, ball and rod mills and flotation cells were dry-commissioned early in the month and sequentially wet-commissioned. All major sections of the hydrometallurgical circuit have been installed and are substantially completed and PLC, piping and electrical installation is now under way in this section of the plant.
The EPCM contractor demobilized a significant proportion of the construction workforce on December 21. A small completion crew will return to site on January 7 to work with the CLQ operations team to finalize the hydrometallurgical installation and assist with the commissioning stages of the project.
The company now has 119 employees on-site and will build up to approximately 160 personnel over the next few months. At full production, the project will have approximately 180 full-time employees. The planned first shipment of lithium carbonate under the five-year Tewoo off-take agreement is on schedule for end-March 2013. Full production of the 20,000 mt/y lithium carbonate processing plant is scheduled for Q4 2013.
