Galaxy sells lithium source to Chinese

The Australian lithium start-up Galaxy Resources Ltd announced on Wednesday that the company will sell its first commercial spodumene concentrate -- a source of lithium.

The consignment, worth A$5.5 million ($5.4 million) will come from its wholly owned Mt Cattlin Spodumene Project (Mt Cattlin) in Western Australia to Chinese customers.

It is the first significant lithium revenue stream for Mt Cattlin, the company said.

The shipment was the fourth shipment of spodumene concentrate exported by Galaxy, with the previous three having been received for processing at Galaxy's wholly-owned Jiangsu Lithium Carbonate Plant in China, which works in the Chinese lithium battery market.

Spodumene concentrate from Mt Cattlin is normally reserved for use at the Jiangsu plant, which started production in March.

A recent sustained high production level at Mt Cattlin has resulted in a surplus of spodumene concentrate beyond the Jiangsu plant's immediate requirements. Galaxy offered the excess to third-party customers.

"As we ramp up production at Jiangsu province, further sales of lithium carbonate will occur under the long-term offtake framework agreements we have in place with customers," said Iggy Tan, Galaxy's managing director.

According to the company, it has long-term offtake framework agreements with 13 major cathode producers in China.

In March, the company invested A$100 million to build a lithium carbonate plant in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province. The new plant has an annual production capacity of 17,000 tons of lithium carbonate, the largest in the Asia-Pacific region so far.

Lithium carbonate is used in lithium-ion batteries, which in turn go into mobile phones, computers and electric vehicles.

dujuan@chinadaily.com.cn