Armadale acquired the Mahenge Liandu project from Graphite Advancement in July 2016
Mahenge Liandu is a high-grade, open-pit graphite mining project. (Credit: Alex Banner from Pixabay)
Armadale Capital has obtained environmental approval for the production of natural flake graphite from the Mahenge Liandu graphite project in Tanzania.
Tanzania’s National Environment Management Council (NEMC) has granted the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA), which is the final necessary step in the mining licence application process.
Located in the Ulanga district, in south-east Tanzania, Mahenge Liandu is a high-grade, open-pit graphite mining project.
Armadale chairman Nick Johansen said: “Armadale has made considerable progress over this past year continually making steps forward in derisking Mahenge Liandu to advance through development towards production at a time where global demand for graphite products is set to rise exponentially especially in spherical graphite manufacturing for the EV market.
“Our recent successful testwork in both Chinese and Australian labs have demonstrated encouraging results that high purity graphite concentrate from our Project is suitable for the battery anode market.”
In July 2016, Armadale acquired the Mahenge Liandu project from Graphite Advancement and finished an exploration programme in the same year.
In an updated definitive feasibility study completed in June 2020, the company reaffirmed Mahenge as a long-life low-cost graphite project.
The Mahenge Liandu project is planned to be developed in two stages. It is expected to produce 60,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of graphite concentrate in the first four years of operation.
Johansen added: “Armadale management are fully aligned with shareholders and we continue to make progress for all shareholders in driving value by moving through development towards production.
“A great deal of important work is being carried out in individual workstreams relating to testing, offtake, financing and the detailed design engineering and this will continue throughout 2021.
“We look forward to updating shareholders across workstreams with regularity throughout the year at a time where there is considerable focus and demand by heigh-quality graphite projects.”