LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Zinnwald Lithium announced on Monday that it has been granted a new exploration licence at Liebenau in Saxony, Germany, completing the licence coverage area required for the development of its Zinnwald Lithium Project.
The AIM-traded company said the 2,997-hectare Liebenau Licence included the site identified in its recent pre-feasibility study as the planned location for the project's processing plant and tailings storage facility.

It said the new licence would extend its contiguous exploration footprint from the main Zinnwald ore body to Liebenau, bringing its total licence area in the region to 12,933 hectares.

Zinnwald said the permit would facilitate critical geo-technical and hydrogeological drilling as it advanced towards a definitive feasibility study.

In addition to enabling infrastructure development, the Liebenau area was considered to have further resource potential.

Historical exploration data from the former East German geological institutions suggested the presence of granite- and greisen-hosted lithium, tin, and tungsten mineralisation extending into the newly-licensed zone.

Zinnwald recently published a pre-feasibility study for the project, which outlined a phased development plan with an initial annual output of 18,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide, scaling up to 35,100 tonnes.

The project carried a pre-tax net present value of €3.3bn and an internal rate of return of 23.8%, with a mine life of over 40 years.

"The Liebenau Licence is an important addition to our licence area, as it includes geological structures through which the planned tunnel connection between Zinnwald and the site of our planned processing plant and tailings storage facility will pass," said chief executive officer Anton du Plessis.

"The new licence complements our existing licence holdings by ensuring we have exploration and access rights for the entire area envisioned for the project's development.

"Our near-term plans for the licence will be to undertake the necessary geo-technical and hydrogeological drilling required to support our DFS work."

At 1047 BST, shares in Zinnwald Lithium were down 3.58% at 5.78p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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