Liontown Resources said underground stoping has commenced on schedule at its Kathleen Valley lithium operation in Western Australia with the first blast fired at the Mt Mann orebody.
“This achievement was made possible by advanced planning, the dedication of our team and the support from our mining partner, Byrnecut, ensuring the first stope blast at Mt Mann proceeded as planned,” commented Liontown Managing Director and CEO Tony Ottaviano.
“As part of normal preparations and planning, we undertook underground ore trials in the March quarter, in advance of first stoping, to understand the optimal plant performance settings. The trials delivered results in line with our study work, which reinforces our confidence in transitioning to full underground operations.”
The March trials confirmed the processability of the underground ore (utilising previously extracted development ore), with a head grade of ~1.5% Li2O and recoveries exceeding 70%, with further optimisation through recovery improvement projects still to come.
The miner said the key objective of the Kathleen Valley underground operations, in the short to medium term, is to safely target high-margin ore and maximise value with the mill expected to be supplied solely by underground volumes (and stockpiles) by the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026.
Kathleen Valley is located in the northern Goldfields region about 60 kilometres north of Leinster and 680 km northeast of Perth.
Source: Liontown Resources