The Pilgangoora miner is teaming up with GLX Digital to launch a new sales and trading software platform that will initially offer unallocated spodumene concentrate for sale by auction, tender, or bilateral sale.

 

Managing director Ken Brinsden said the platform was intended to provide Pilbara with a further avenue for growth, offering interested parties the ability to easily purchase spodumene concentrate product from the company's growing operations without long-term contracts.

 

GLX Digital has provided a digital trading platform to the gas industry over the past five years, dealing with multiple buyers and sellers over multiple jurisdictions, and is now expanding with Pilbara's new Battery Material Exchange

 

The new platform is intended to facilitate discreet sales of its spodumene concentrate product on an anonymous basis.

 

Brinsden said the digital sales would be an adjunct to its offtake customers, not a replacement for the important role of long-term contracted sales, which have been so vital to developing WA's lithium sector.

 

With the lithium price in recovery mode, and "a material increase in new potential credible buyers" for its output, he said the BME could offer expanding and emerging chemical producers a more efficient and sophisticated channel to secure lithium raw materials.

 

The platform is expected to expand to offer the unallocated future production capacity from the recent Altura acquisition, which is being studied for a restart later this year. 

 

Pilbara said it could eventually work with GLX to add in other projects, such as spodumene concentrate with differing product grades.

 

The platform will use Pilbara's existing sales terms and conditions, inclusive of a letter of credit. 

 

Shares in Pilbara, which have traded between A12.4c and $1.47 over the past year were around $1.06 today, valuing the miner at $3.15 billion.