Botswana-focused Giyani Metals has acquired its first long-lead item for its demonstration plant for manganese processing.
The crystalliser unit is the most expensive piece of equipment in the demonstration plant, and has the longest lead time. It is scheduled to arrive in South Africa, where the demonstration plant will be constructed and commissioned, in the December quarter this year.
The plant will be moved to the K.Hill project site in Botswana after commissioning.
Giyani now anticipates first shipments of product samples to potential customers in 2023.
The demonstration plant aims to demonstrate that the process flowsheet developed for Giyani's K.Hill project will produce high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) crystals. It also aims to provide product samples to customers to test the crystals, and de-risk commercial plant development by optimising the demonstration plant.
The HPMSM crystals will be used by battery materials customers.
"The company is currently working with multiple potential buyers, who have expressed a desire to receive samples as soon as available," chief executive Robin Birchall said.
The demonstration plant is expected to produce approximately 600 kg per day of the crystals.
Giyani is now moving forward with the completion of its feasibility study, given its confidence in the metallurgical testwork and its process flowsheet. Giyani aims to release the feasibility study in the September quarter.
Drilling at the K.Hill extension continues, with Giyani having completed 18 RC drill holes out of an expected 55 drill holes for a total of 7,150 meters. Giyani is determining the correlation between southern mineralised horizons and the northern resource horizons, which would allow them to convert the majority of inferred resources to indicated resources.
In April 2021, Giyani Metals issued an updated preliminary assessment that estimated a post-tax Net Present Value of US$332 million at post-tax Investor Rate of Return of 80%. The project is expected to produce around 891,000 tonnes of HPMSM over a 10-year mine life.
