Costing $US40,000 last March (with another $200,000 due the local vendors upon production), the Bougouni project is being sold to Shandong Mingrui Group.

An initial deposit $A10.75 million from Mingrui is to be followed by the balance outstanding within 45 days of the first payment.

Shares in Birimian were up 21% in morning trade to 40c, capitalising the junior at $73.5 million.

When Birimian bought the project back in March (when its shares were about 5c), it said it contained a high-grade lithium pegmatite deposit at Goulamina “which is well-defined in outcrop and provides confidence for the company to estimate an initial exploration target in the range of 15 million tonnes to 18Mt at grades between 1.8% and 2.2% lithium”.

The company subsequently outlined a maiden resource of 15.5Mt at 1.48% lithium oxide in October.

Birimian had been down to its last dollar when it bought Bougouni, having $467,000 in the quarter before the deal was revealed.

An entitlement issue (priced at 6.2c), plus the exercising of options and a $5 million placement (priced at 24c), saw the company raise about $9 million.

Birimian is currently estimated to have about $6 million cash.

The sale comes with interest in the lithium sector a feature of the ASX resources sector in 2016.

By way of comparison with Bougouni, Kidman Resources last month announced a maiden resource for its world-class Earl Grey deposit in Western Australia of 128Mt at 1.44% lithium oxide.

Kidman is estimated to have about $11 million cash and is capitalised at $202 million.