Kodal Minerals reported on Friday that significant progress has been made at its Bougouni lithium mine project in southern Mali, with construction now near completion and commercial production about to start.
The Bougouni mine is expected to become Mali's second lithium mine in operation within two months, after Ganfeng's Goulamina project achieved its first spodumene production in December. Cordal said the heavy media separation (DMS) processing plant at the Bougouni lithium mine has produced more than 11,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate. Production operations are gradually ramping up and in the last week of March alone, the plant processed 13,400 tonnes of ore and produced 1,920 tonnes of spodumene concentrate with a lithium oxide grade of 5.63%. Progress towards full production has been slowed by delays in the process of transferring the mining licence from Future Minerals SARL to Bougouni Lithium (LMLB). LMLB is 65% controlled by Cordal Mining UK (KMUK), which is a joint venture between Cordal Mining (49%) and China's Hainan Mining Group (51%), with the remaining 35% held by the Malian government. Cordal confirmed that the updates required for the corporate restructuring of LMLB have been approved by the Malian Ministry of Mines and the Ministry of Finance and are now only subject to the final signature of Malian President Asemi Goita. As a result of the above delay, Cordal has applied to the Malian government for an extension of the $7.5 million payment originally set out in the Memorandum of Understanding dated November 1, 2024. The government of Mali has received the request and a formal response is expected shortly. Cordal CEO Bernard Aylward said the company is confident of achieving its target of producing 11,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate per month. He noted: "Our team has accumulated an inventory of spodumene concentrate equivalent to one month's production, which is ready to be shipped and sold. We are continuing to build inventory, which gives us confidence that we will meet our production targets." The Bougouni lithium mine is located 170 km south of Bamako, Mali's capital, in an area that already has several active mines, including Hummingbird Resources' Yanfolila gold mine and B2Gold's Fekola mine.
