The Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX: PLS) share price surged 15% to be the top performer on the ASX after yet another market update from the lithium and tantalum producer.
What did Pilbara announce?
The company made two announcements to the ASX yesterday, with the first declaring commercial production at Pilgangoora.
The declaration of commercial production follows the achievement of sustained spodumene concentrate production during the first six months of operation with production in excess of 111,199 dry metric tonnes (dmt) of saleable product so far in FY19.
The company expects further improvement to be made across all performance metrics as improvement projects are executed and further optimisation of the process plant occurs.
Just two minutes later, Pilbara made another announcement to say that it is commencing its stage 3 partnering process for the Pilgangoora project.
The company said partners are to be considered for Stage 3 offtake, chemical plant participation and potential minority interest sell-down of the project, supporting both the continued expansion of Pilgangoora via Stages 2 and 3, and Pilbara's downstream participation strategy.
The potential sale of a minority project level interest in the Pilgangoora project is expected to be 20% – 49% with Pilbara receiving interest from third parties in respect of project ownership and product offtake.
Why has the Pilbara share price kept climbing this week?
Pilbara's investor relations team has been flat out this week as the company provided an update on Cyclone Veronica, the outcomes of its Stage 3 scoping study and the completion of its Ganfeng equity placement.
All in all this week has been a massive recovery for the Pilbara share price but I'm not sure I'd be investing in Pilbara nor its lithium miner peers including Galaxy Resources Ltd (ASX: GXY).
Lithium prices remain depressed and despite the recovery, Pilbara's share price is still in the red over the last 12 months while the Galaxy price has fallen more than 25% in the last 6 months alone.
For those who want exposure to a booming industry other than lithium, this top-rated growth stock is well-placed to take a $22 billion market opportunity and could be set to surge higher in 2019.
