Partners Piedmont Lithium and Atlantic Lithium have issued strong denials of allegations made by short seller Blue Orca Capital in connection with Atlantic Lithium’s Ewoyaa lithium project in Ghana, and both companies say they will confer with legal counsel, Kallanish reports.

Blue Orca says in a negative report that Atlantic Lithium obtained its permits in the African country through what appears to be “textbook corruption.” Blue Orca says the company made secret payments to the immediate family of a high-ranking Ghanian politician. The Texas-based short seller says it is convinced that Ghana’s Parliament will reject the company’s mining licenses because they are “tainted by corruption.” That would jeopardise Piedmont’s ability to provide lithium to the Tennessee plant and to Tesla Inc.

Australia-based Atlantic Lithium says it “outrightly refutes the allegations of impropriety made by the report.”  It says the allegations are “ungrounded” and “factually untrue.”

US-based Piedmont Lithium says it can purchase other lithium to feed its Tennessee processing plant, if lithium is not available from Ghana. Piedmont has the right to purchase 50% of the Ewoyaa lithium for the life of the mine. It has invested $100 million in the African project.

The Ewoyaa project has mineral resource estimates of 35.3m tonnes at 1.25% lithium oxide including 28m t in the higher-confidence measured and indicated resources. That estimate includes 3.5m t at 1.37% lithium oxide in the measured category and 24.5m t at 1.25% lithium oxide in the indicated category. An additional 7.4m t at 1.16% lithium oxide is in the inferred category. The company says it is planning to release a definitive feasibility study on Ewoyaa in 2Q 2023. Production is expected to begin in 2025.

Piedmont is also developing its own lithium mine in North Carolina and has partnered with Australia-based Sayona Mining on lithium projects in Quebec.