First shipment for Galaxy Resources

ASX-listed miner Galaxy Resources this week successfully loaded its first shipment of spodumene from Bunbury Port.

The 6500-tonne shipment was loaded on the MV Ocean Flower on Monday bound for the Zhangjiagang Port in China.

In a statement to shareholders, Galaxy managing director Iggy Tan said the first shipment of spodumene from its wholly-owned Mt Cattlin mine was an important milestone for the fledgling company.

He said the company shipped its first product from Bunbury Port while it finalises shipping arrangements with Esperance Port.

‘‘It is the first load of spodumene to be shipped from out Mt Cattlin mine in Ravensthorpe and heralds the preparation of commissioning at our Jiangsu Carbonate plant in China,’’ Mr Tan said.

‘‘We are still on track to begin the commissioning and start-up of the Jiangsu plant end of second quarter.

‘‘If we have a surplus of spodumene around the commissioning phase, we may consider selling subsequent shipments to external customers, but our priority is the Jiangsu plant.’’

Last week Galaxy announced it had lifted the total contained lithium oxide resource at its Mt Cattlin mine by 14 per cent to 197,000 tonnes, up from its last resource estimate issued in January.

Mr Tan said recent drilling, modelling and evaluation have boosted both resources and reserves at the lithium-focussed project, which now had a measured and indicated mineral resource up 12 per cent to 13.8 million tonnes.

He said the resource increase extended the potential mine life of the spodumene project to 18 years, including inferred resources.

MtCattlin is the first mine in Australia to have real-time solar tracking panels as part of its power generating requirements.