The Allkem Ltd (ASX: AKE) share price is up 1.96% on Tuesday to $15.11 following an update from the ASX lithium company.
Allkem has updated ASX investors on its ore and mineral reserves at its Mt Cattlin mine in Western Australia.
Let's take a look at the details.
What did Allkem announce on Tuesday?
The total ore reserve at Mt Caittlin as of 30 June was 7.1Mt at 1.2% Li2O.
This is down from 7.8Mt as of 31 March.
The total mineral resource estimate is now 9.4Mt.
The update largely reflects depletion due to mining activities since 31 December 2022.
Allkem says there are four to five years of open pit mining work left at Mt Cattlin.
The company is now waiting for an underground feasibility study to be completed in 2024.
Allkem said:
It will enable a variety of scenarios to be modelled and will ensure an optimised future mining method is selected.
What's happening with lithium prices?
The battery-grade lithium carbonate price is currently just under US$39,000 per tonne.
This is well down on its record high of almost US$85,000 in November 2022, but up from its 18-month low of US$23,400 reached in April this year.
The fall since November is mainly due to China ceasing electric vehicle subsidies earlier this year.
Allkem share price snapshot
The Allkem share price is up 36.7% in 2023 so far and 28% higher over the past 12 months.
