Lotus Resources has dispatched the first uranium ore concentrate shipment from its Kayelekera mine in Malawi. The consignment, four containers holding approximately 145,000 pounds of U3O8, has left the mine site bound for the Port of Walvis Bay in Namibia. Shipping is booked for a November departure from Walvis Bay, with delivery to Orano CE Malvesi in France expected by the end of the calendar year, and Lotus expects further shipments to leave site before year end.
The export was the last logistical piece of the restart. Namibia’s National Radiation Protection Authority issued the final transport and export authorisation in late October, completing a permit chain that runs through Malawi’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Agency and a Zambian transport licence held by logistics partner Alistair Group. The cargo travels overland from Karonga District through Zambia into Namibia before shipping to France for conversion.
Managing director Greg Bittar described the despatch as one of the final steps in delivering product to customers and beginning to generate revenue and cash flow, while the company remains focused on optimising Kayelekera and ramping up production. The mine’s acid plant was reported in October to be operating at about 50 to 60 percent of design capacity, which frames how much ramp remains.
At full operation Kayelekera is projected to produce 2.4 million pounds of uranium a year. The Government of Malawi holds a 15 percent equity stake under the project’s mining development agreement, with Lotus holding the remaining 85 percent, and local reporting puts the mine’s expected annual economic benefit at about 190 million dollars once it is fully operational. Pricing on the first cargo has not been disclosed; earlier local reporting said contract prices sit at a discount to a spot price then around 90 dollars a pound.
The shipment lands in a soft tape for the complex, with uranium miners down 5.57 percent in the last United States session. For Lotus the milestone is operational rather than financial: revenue recognition, realised pricing and unit costs are all still to be reported, and the repeatability of the export corridor across three countries is the next test after this single cargo.