PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Potash developer Avenira has announced an independent mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 66-million tonnes at 30% phosphorus pentoxide at its Wonarah deposit, in the Northern Territory.

Avenira told shareholders on Wednesday that the independent assessment had reinforced the deposit’s potential to support a direct shipping ore (DSO) operation and downstream processing opportunities, such as yellow phosphorous, thermal phosphoric acid and lithium iron phosphate.

“The identification of high-grade zones within the Wonarah MRE cements its position as Australia’s largest known high-grade phosphate deposit. It also underpins the strategic significance of Wonarah to the agricultural and rapidly growing battery chemistry industries,” said Avenira executive chairperson Brett Clark.

“The high grade and long life of the Wonarah deposit provide us with great flexibility and confidence as we pursue our DSO project and other downstream ventures.”

Avenira this week signed a formal agreement with its technology partner Advanced Lithium Electrochemistry Ltd (Aleees) to use its intellectual property for the manufacture and global distribution of lithium ferro phosphate (LFP) cathode active material (CAM).

An earlier scoping study evaluated the economics of an LFP CAM project at Wonarah, based on two initial scales for the LFP plant, at 100 000 t/y LFP CAM and 30 000 t/y LFP CAM, with both scenarios demonstrating solid financial robustness.

At a base-case price of $18 533/t of lithium hydroxide and $17 305/t lithium cobalt oxide, the 10 000 t/y operation was expected to have a net present value (NPV) of A$138-million post tax and an internal rate of return (IRR) of 22%, while the enlarged operation would have an NPV of A$413-million and an IRR of 22.4%.

Under the base case, the smaller operation would generate total revenues of A$3.9-billion while the 30 000 t/y operation would generate A$11.3-billion in revenues and A$2-billion in total free cash flows, compared with the A$682-million in free cash flows from the smaller operation.