Zijin Mining 3Q Lithium Salt Lake Project officially started construction of the second phase of the Congo (gold) copper mine was put into production ahead of schedule.

March 22, Zijin Mining (601899) released the news, March 20, Argentina time, the heart of the Andes in Catamaca province, 4100 meters above sea level. Zijin Mining's first lithium mining project Lithium Industry Co., Ltd. 3Q Salt Lake Lithium Construction Project held the opening ceremony. This marks the official start of Zijin Mining in the field of "white oil" lithium mine a month and a half after the delivery of the project.

Zijin Mining said that under the "double carbon" wave, the 3Q project will play an important role for the company to break through "lithium", the leading metal of new energy and new materials, and accelerate to become an important global supplier of lithium materials.

In terms of resources, the 3Q Lithium Salt Lake Project, located in the famous "Lithium Triangle" in South America, is one of the best lithium salt lake resources in the world, the volume ranks in the top 5 of the world's major salt lakes, and its grade ranks in the top 3 of the world's major salt lakes. According to the latest feasibility study, the 3Q project has a total lithium carbonate equivalent of about 7.63 million tons (lithium ion concentration boundary grade 400mg/L), of which the reserves are 1.67 million tons, accounting for 31% of the proven + controlled resources, with an average lithium ion concentration of 786mg/L. The project has the advantages of large amount of resources, high grade, low impurities and good development conditions.

From the point of view of the project content, the construction of 3Q lithium salt lake project mainly includes 3Q Salar salt field, Fiambala lithium carbonate plant and related supporting projects. The construction of Yantian officially began on the 20th, and the construction of lithium carbonate plant is scheduled to start in early April. The first phase of the project plans to produce 20, 000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate per year, with a total investment of 370 million US dollars, and will be officially put into production by the end of 2023. This year, Synchronize will carry out the feasibility study of the second phase of the project and strive to start construction in 2023 to expand the annual production capacity of lithium carbonate to 40, 000 to 60, 000 tons. In addition, in order to reduce the project's carbon emissions, the project plans to further increase the use and promotion of clean energy.

From the perspective of layout, in July 2021, Zijin Mining proposed for the first time that it should extend to new energy and new materials in the future. In August of the same year, Chen Jinghe said that he would distribute new energy and new material resources, including lithium mines, and planned to acquire some projects and mine assets. and open up the whole industry chain from lithium upstream resources to materials; On October 10th, it was announced that the company would acquire Canadian New Lithium Company in cash, with a transaction amount of about 4.94 billion yuan. On January 26th, 2022, it completed the delivery of 100% equity merger and acquisition of Canadian New Lithium Company and officially opened up a new energy "new track". On February 1, the project team gathered in Argentina; on March 20, the project officially started construction.

Chen Jinghe, chairman of Zijin Mining, said that extracting lithium from salt lake is actually a chemical process. Zijin Mining started with hydrometallurgy and has many chemical talents, which will bring more innovation to the technical transformation of the project and the improvement of production capacity. in the future, the company will go all out to rush the huge blue ocean market of new energy and new materials.

In addition to continuing with the lithium salt lake project, Zijin Mining also announced on the morning of March 23 that the concentrator for the second phase of the Camoa Kakoula Copper Mine, which is part of the company's cooperation with Ivanhoe Mining of Canada and the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to handle 3.8 million tons of ore per year, had recently started commissioning with raw materials, which was completed and put into operation about 4 months ahead of schedule.

According to Zijin Mining, benefiting from the construction and operation experience of the first phase of the project, the second phase of the project took 18 months to complete and put into operation, six months shorter than that of the first phase of the project, and reached the production standard only three months after the first phase of the project was put into operation. It is expected that the second phase of the project will reach the production standard more smoothly.

By the end of February 2022, the surface yard of Kamoa-Kakoula copper mine has stored about 4.6 million tons of ore, with an average copper grade of about 4.58%. Sufficient ore reserves plus high-grade ores mined underground will provide stable ore supply conditions for phase I and phase II production. The Kamoa-Kakoula copper mine plans to produce 29-340000 tons of copper in 2022. Due to the early commissioning of the second phase of the project, the output is expected to reach the upper limit of the annual plan in 2022.

The Kamoa-Kakoula copper mine has a copper resource of 43.59 million tons with an average grade of 2.53%. The project company is currently carrying out the construction of the Kakoula copper mine in the south. After the second phase of the project is put into production, it plans to increase the production capacity of the original designed mining scale of 7.6 million tons / year to 9.2 million tons / year after the second phase of the project is put into production, achieving an annual output of more than 450000 tons of copper, making it the fourth largest copper mine in the world.

At present, Zijin Mining is fully promoting the preliminary work of the third phase of the project, striving for the total mining scale of the Kamoa-Kakoula copper mine to reach 19 million tons, with a maximum annual output of more than 800,000 tons, making it the second largest copper mine in the world.