
Bernard Aylward
CEO: Kodal Minerals
‘Mali has the right to protect its interests with the new 2023 Mining Code’
BERNARD Aylward’s Kodal Minerals is one of several miners in Mali that has made the pivot to the country’s newly legislated Mining Code (2023), but it has been a difficult road. In November, the company announced that the mining licence for its Bougouni Lithium Project in southern Mali, initially issued in terms of the 2019 code, had been transferred to the new code. This was subject to the 35% purchase of the project, via Kodal Minerals UK, by the state and its nominated ‘national private investor interest’. It has thrown up a complication, however.
In November Kodal’s 14.51% shareholder Hainan Group, a Chinese company, declared a dispute, saying a $15m tax payment to Mali, a function of the mining licence award, should fall to Kodal instead of subsidiary Kodal Minerals UK, the joint venture they share. Notwithstanding this dispute, the grant of the mining licence removes a major uncertainty for Aylward ahead of first production of 125,000 tons of lithium spodumene a year from the first quarter. This is slightly later than envisaged owing to heavy rains during the third quarter and transportation issues, none of which is fatal to the project.
The lithium price, however, has been under pressure, falling 80% since the start of 2023 to end 2024. This is no great problem, says Aylward. An offtake agreement with Hainan Group – which pumped $118m into the company last year – guarantees a profit-making floor price for the mine. A second phase expansion to 340,000 tons a year, by means of a flotation plant, will be financed on positive cash from the first phase.
LIFE OF BERNARD
A geologist, Aylward earned his stripes in West Africa’s exploration industry, playing a part in the discovery of four deposits in Ghana, as well as a history of successful discoveries in Western Australia. Other postings have seen him dig for metals in Greece and Siberia, locations that couldn’t be more different and underpinning the mining truism that you go where the deposit is. He took Taruga Minerals through a listing in Australia and was COO for International Goldfields as well as holding down positions at Croesus Mining and Azumah Resources.