Demand for battery minerals will create a boom in Western Australia “bigger and more sustained” than the state’s gold boom of the 1990s, one of Australia’s foremost mining engineers has predicted. Speaking at day two of Paydirt’s 2018 Battery Minerals conference in Perth, Midas Engineering Group Director/Principal Consulting Engineer, Damian Connelly, said the sector was misjudging the full impact that demand for the precious commodity will have in the short to medium term.

“Make no mistake, the demand for battery minerals will create a WA boom bigger and more sustained than the gold boom of the 1990s,” Connelly said. “The market and financial institutions are underestimating the huge disruptive change and the speed of change occurring in the technology of the battery market.

“The very demanding technical specifications for battery minerals will limit the suitability of some ores. With cobalt, nickel, vanadium and manganese, and exciting new technology will produce the demanding pure specifications required.  “Demand is currently exceeding supply and current expansions will still lag behind for a number of years to come.”
Meanwhile, Tawana’s first lithium concentrate shipment from Bald Hill is expected in April

• Lithium concentrate production commenced 13 March 2018
• Bald Hill first new lithium mine in Australia since 2016.
• First lithium concentrate shipment expected in April 2018, then about monthly thereafter
• Three to four month ramp up to 1.2Mtpa for Stage 1.

Tawana has a 50% interest in the Bald Hill lithium and tantalum mine, WA. It comprises: four mining leases, 16 exploration/prospecting licences and five applications totalling 774 km2. Bald Hill has a maiden Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource estimate of 12.8 Mt at 1.18% Li2O and 158ppm Ta2O5 at a 0.5% Li2O cutoff (high grade).