World-class Salt Lake Lithium Project completes delivery of Zijin Mining Industry to open up a new energy "new track"

On January 26, after more than three months of steady progress, Zijin Mining announced the completion of the 100% equity merger and acquisition of Canada's New Lithium Company, officially opening up a "new track" for new energy. The company will start the construction of 3Q Salt Lake Lithium Project in Argentina as soon as possible to achieve the goal of putting the first phase of the project into production by the end of 2023.

In October 2021, Zijin Mining announced an offer of 5 billion yuan to acquire New Lithium Company. One stone stirs up thousands of waves, under the circumstances that the global new energy continues to be optimistic, the price of lithium carbonate continues to rise, and the traditional international mining giants frequently sell lithium and other new energy minerals, Zijin Mining can realize the deal as scheduled, causing a lot of speculation in the market.

According to the Zijin Mining announcement, the general meeting of shareholders of the New Lithium Company has approved the transaction, the approval or filing procedures of domestic and foreign regulatory authorities for the acquisition of shares in the New Lithium Company have been completed, and the EIA permit for the first phase of the 3Q project has been approved. After delivery, the new lithium company will be officially delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange growth Enterprise Market, the OTCQX over-the-counter Market in the United States and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in Germany.

From the many conditions to achieve delivery, we can see that it is not easy behind this delivery. The realization of this transaction, once again let the market see Zijin Mining in overseas mergers and acquisitions project "stable, accurate, fast" style.

The 3Q project, the core asset of New Lithium Company, is located in the famous "Lithium Triangle" in South America. It is one of the best lithium salt lake resources in the world. Its 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.

"Fast" is the consistent style of Zijin Mining. In October 2021, after Zijin Mining announced its intention to acquire New Lithium Company, it immediately set up a 3Q project team to investigate the project in advance and communicate with scientific research institutions and experts in the salt lake lithium extraction industry at home and abroad for many times. to demonstrate and optimize the lithium extraction process of feasibility research and design.

It is understood that the main management and technical team of the 3Q project, led by Huang Huaiguo, a doctor of chemical engineering who has held many important technical and management positions in Zijin Mining, has moved into the project site, and the project construction will be started as soon as the project delivery is completed.

The first phase of the project is designed to produce 20,000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate per year and is expected to be completed and put into production by the end of 2023. The project has previously carried out a preliminary study with an annual output of 40-60,000 tons of lithium carbonate. in the future, the company will comprehensively strengthen the research on production expansion technology, put forward a technical transformation and expansion plan in time, and achieve the new production target as soon as possible.

According to the evaluation and demonstration of Zijin Mining, the 3Q project has the possibility of further optimizing the layout of the production process, and at that time, the project investment and production costs will be further reduced. In view of the low lithium recovery rate in the first phase of the 3Q project, the company organized a technical team to conduct a preliminary experimental study, and there is a possibility to obviously improve the lithium recovery rate and output. At the same time, in order to reduce the carbon emissions of the project, Zijin Mining intends to further increase the clean energy use and promotion of the project.

The reporter also noted that in January 2022, Zijin Mining established a joint venture with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) National Mining Company to officially launch Zijin Mining's first lithium exploration project, which is located in the periphery of the world's largest hard-rock lithium deposit, Kong Kong Gold Manono Lithium Mine, with great prospecting potential. At the same time, Zijin has also made a layout in the aspects of electrolytic copper foil and lithium iron phosphate. If the comprehensive development of lithium resources can be realized in "one lake and one mine", Zijin Mining will have a broader layout and staying power prospect in new energy mines.

Chen Jinghe, chairman of Zijin Mining, said that as a latecomer to the new energy market, the company has lagged behind on the "starting line" in the face of the global energy revolution and the rapid development of the new energy industry. the company's board of directors' decision to enter the new energy and new materials industry is a major strategic supplement. In the future structure of the company's leapfrog growth, it will form a pattern of copper "main force", gold "fresh force" and new energy "strengthening army". The company will quickly solve the problems of talent, technology and mechanism, work in a "wartime" state, and quickly become a leader in the new energy industry with Zijin characteristics.

According to the company's New year's announcement, Zijin Mining's operating performance repeatedly reached record highs in 2021, and its annual net profit is expected to be about 15.6 billion yuan, an increase of 9.1 billion yuan over the same period last year, and an increase of about 140 percent over the same period last year. Looking forward to 2022, the company's main product planning indicators are 860000 tons of mineral copper, 60 tons of mineral gold, 480000 tons of mineral zinc (lead), 310 tons of mineral silver and 3.2 million tons of iron concentrate. At the beginning of the new year, the company will adjust its strategic goal of 2030 to "green high-tech super-first-class international mining group", which shows its confidence and determination to accelerate green sustainable development and seize opportunities in the field of new energy under the background of "double carbon".