Battery metals developer AVZ Minerals is set to plough $25 million into an early works program and exploration drilling campaign at its Manono lithium and tin project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The outlay is a slice of a $75 million cash injection from a heavily oversubscribed capital raise and aims to fund the company’s shift to lithium production.
According to the company, the $25 million investment will help to keep the Manono project on schedule and support an extensional drilling play at the projects Roche Dure deposit. AVZ argue the looming probe could bolster its previously reported JORC mineral resource and ore reserve estimates.
Management expects the early works program to be polished off towards the end of the year with a spend of close to $19 million. The outlay will go to upgrading the projects infrastructure, purchasing equipment, constructing a campsite and advancing a series of technical studies including metallurgical testing and downstream processing.
The residual $6 million balance will be used for additional drilling at the tier-1 Roche Dure mineral resource, that the company believes is one of the globes largest undeveloped hard rock lithium deposits.
AVZ Mineral’s Managing Director Nigel Ferguson said:“The drilling program has the potential to add significant value with respect to expanding the reserve life of the Roche Dure deposit, whilst also identifying high grade ore zones for initial feed to the plant, providing increased SC6 production volumes from the start of operations.”
AVZ’s 75 per cent owned Manono project is located about 500 kilometres north of Lubumbashi in the southern region of the Congo, Central Africa. The project claims a 400 million-tonne mineral resource with a solid 1.65 per cent lithium, 715 parts per million tin and 34ppm tantalum.
The JORC compliant mineral reserve at the project weighs in at an imposing 132 million tonnes going 1.63 per cent lithium.
Manono boasts a near-unrivalled tonnage and an impressively high grade stretching across its entire reserve.
The outlay comes hot on the heels of AVZ’s recent listing on the United States OTCQX best market a move the company says could help it capitalise on growing US interest in the Manono lithium and tin project.
AVZ appears to be putting its money where its mouth is as it attempts become a key player in the booming battery metals market. $25 million is not an amount to be sneezed at, however with one of the world's largest undeveloped hard-rock lithium deposits in its kit bag the company’s decision to inject sizeable funds into the project’s development may prove very shrewd.
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By Matt Birney
