from OKORO CHINEDU in Lagos, Nigeria
Nigeria Bureau
LAGOS, (CAJ News) -THE United Kingdom-based Jupiter Lithium pledges to accelerate Nigeria’s efforts to diversify the local economy beyond oil.
This is through the commissioning of the country’s first tier one mining operation.
Addressing the Africa Downunder conference in Perth, Australia, Jupiter Lithium Chief Executive Officer, Andrew White, said the company’s project had mining licenses and approvals to see it through for the next 50 years.
This is with the aim of being the lowest cost producer of hard rock lithium globally.
“We have high grade spodumene averaging between 2,4-2,6 percent and we are able to use a simple DMS [dense media separation] process, which has low power, low water and low chemical consumption,” White said.
He said Jupiter was also large enough to initiate and underpin the transition of Nigeria’s economy away from oil and gas to a new clean energy economy.
“We are delivering the start of the entire [lithium] value chain in Nigeria with our modular spodumene concentrators, delivering directly to nearby lithium carbonate plants,” White said.
The Jupiter project benefits from established civil infrastructure, including rail and road, being less than 100km from the capital Abuja.
An independent Canadian group had previously produced an early target resource estimate for Jupiter of 31 metric tonnes based on four of the identified mineralisation targets at the time.
Jupiter will be producing first concentrate in the second quarter of 2025.
The concentrate will be transported locally to Re-element Technologies for processing to lithium carbonate battery grade.
The Jupiter project is seen as a catalyst for the future development of a vertically integrated lithium value chain in Nigeria.
– CAJ News