Piedmont Lithium mineral analysis reveals simple lithium ore body

Piedmont Lithium Ltd (ASX:PLL) has completed mineralogical testing in the form of x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis on samples from its Piedmont Lithium Project in North Carolina, US.

The results from the Core, Central and Sunnyside areas show the relatively pure spodumene character of the ore bodies, which is both rare and positive.

The pure spodumene will allow for a simplified flowsheet to produce strong lithium recoveries.

Often hard rock lithium projects contain multiple lithium-bearing minerals such as petalite and lepidolite.

READ: Piedmont Lithium hits further high-grade lithium at Piedmont project in USA

Piedmont’s president and CEO Keith D. Phillips said: “As the market’s understanding of lithium processing evolves, it will become increasingly clear that mineralogy and metallurgy are the fundamental building blocks of a successful hard-rock lithium business.

“Our testwork confirms what we have always suspected – the Carolina Tin-Spodumene Belt is exceptional not only in scale but in terms of mineralogy.

“When combined with the shallow nature of our ore body and the capital and operating cost advantages of our location, we are excited about the upcoming resource, metallurgical and scoping study updates.”

Notably, Piedmont remains on-track to release resource, metallurgy and scoping study updates in the next 60 days.

Proactive caught up with the company in late May 2019 to discuss its recent drilling success and what that means for the project.

Story by ProactiveInvestors