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CMJ Daily Tape

GOVERNMENT CONTRACT | GRAPHITE

Titan Mining signs a term sheet with the US Army for an Alabama graphite plant

Titan Mining said on Wednesday that its subsidiary Empire State Mines signed a preliminary agreement with the US Department of the Army setting out commercial terms, in a term sheet, for a proposed graphite processing facility at Anniston Army Depot in Alabama. The site covers about 97 acres of underutilized Army property. The lease framework carries an initial 50-year term with two 25-year renewal options. Empire State Mines would develop, finance, build, own and operate the plant. The first product is purified micronized graphite, with coated spherical purified graphite for lithium-ion anodes to follow. The Army holds a right of first offer on certain uncommitted output, capped at 10% of annual facility production.

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The 10% cap is the number to hold. Empire State Mines has to place about 90% of the plant's output, and for coated spherical purified graphite the buyers that matter are lithium-ion cell makers who qualify an anode supplier over quarters: sampling, cell cycling, then line trials before a tonne is contracted. A term sheet with no capacity figure and no committed volume gives a lender nothing to size debt against. Tenure of up to 100 years is the easy part; supplier qualification sets the schedule.

OFFTAKE | LITHIUM

Savannah Resources expects a second Barroso offtake deal this quarter

Savannah Resources chief executive Emanuel Proenca said on an analyst call on Wednesday that a second offtake agreement for the Barroso lithium project in northern Portugal is expected this quarter. The first, signed with AMG Critical Materials in June 2024, covers 45,000 tonnes a year of spodumene concentrate for five years, about 25% of planned output. Lenders want 70% to 75% of future output under long-term supply deals. Barroso holds more than 39 million tonnes of spodumene resources. Construction cost is about $420 million, with first production in 2028.

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Read the lenders' number, not the chief executive's. At 70% to 75% contracted, a second deal the size of AMG's takes Savannah to about half the book, which means a third counterparty before financial close. Spodumene concentrate also has to meet a converter's feed specification on iron and mica, and European conversion capacity able to take Barroso material is thin. First production in 2028 turns on who can process the concentrate, not on who signs for it.

EXPLORATION | URANIUM

Skyharbour starts 3,600 metres of drilling at Getty East on Denison's earn-in money

Skyharbour Resources said on 7 October that drilling has begun at the Getty East uranium joint venture in the eastern Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan, the first phase of 2026 at the property. The program covers about 3,600 metres in 10 to 12 holes, funded by Denison Mines' earn-in: four holes at the Little Man Zone and six to eight on the Middle Lake Extension grid. Getty East covers 3,105 hectares. Skyharbour holds 70% and is operator, and Denison can earn up to 70% by spending C$15 million over seven years.

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The grade to hold on to is the 0.03% to 0.10% U3O8 at about 300 metres last drilled at Little Man in 1989, not the 22.1% over 0.9 metres that Uranerz drilled in the 1980s on adjacent ground Skyharbour does not own and its own Qualified Person has not verified. Ten to twelve holes over 3,600 metres is a targeting exercise, not a resource. Denison funds it, which tells you who holds the option and who takes the dilution.

PROJECT APPROVAL | COPPER

ZCCM-IH shareholders approve a $498-million tailings leach plant at Konkola

ZCCM Investment Holdings shareholders approved a $498-million tailings leach plant at Konkola Copper Mines in Zambia, where ZCCM-IH holds 20.6%. The plant will reprocess material from Tailings Dam 5 at Nchanga, estimated at 546 million tonnes grading 0.54% copper, running 53,500 tonnes of tailings a day, or 17.7 million tonnes a year, for about 70,000 tonnes a year of copper cathode at full capacity, at a 74% recovery through solvent extraction and electrowinning. Implementation runs 24 months, with full capacity from the fourth year. China NERIN Engineering holds the engineering, procurement and construction contract.

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The arithmetic closes exactly, which is the warning. 17.7 million tonnes a year at 0.54% copper is about 95,600 tonnes contained, and 74% recovery gives roughly 70,700 — the cathode figure is the recovery assumption with nothing spare. Tailings plants live or die on the variability of the dam, not its average grade, and TD5 has decades of deposition behind it. A 24-month build that only reaches full capacity in year four already prices in the learning curve.

PERMITTING | LITHIUM

Sigma Lithium restarts Grota do Cirilo after an appeals court upheld its licences

Sigma Lithium said on Tuesday it would resume mining and processing at Grota do Cirilo in Brazil after a federal appeals court upheld its environmental licences, overturning an emergency order issued last month by a federal judge in Teofilo Otoni that had suspended them. The suit was brought by Ngolo, an association representing local Quilombola communities; Sigma says its operations lie outside a newly claimed community perimeter. The company kept its target of an annualised 330,000 tonnes a year of lithium oxide concentrate by the end of 2027, and said it needs no further capacity to reach it.

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Sigma is right that it needs no new capacity: 330,000 tonnes a year annualised is about 904 tonnes a day, and the plant has already run above 950. The exposure is the licence, not the mill. A line stopped by an emergency order and restarted on appeal carries a logistics tail — stockpile position, shipping windows, and the concentrate quality customers accept after an unplanned halt. Phase two in 2027 rests on a licence nobody has litigated to the merits.

CMJ’s WEEKLY AND IN-DEPTH EDITIONS

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