CleanTech Lithium AIM:CTL, the AIM-listed lithium exploration and development company operating primarily in Chile has published a maiden JORC-inferred resource estimate at its Francisco Basin Lithium project.
According to a company presentation, the resource estimate for Francisco Basin inferred an estimate of 0.53 million tonnes (mT) of lithium carbonate equivalent at a grade of 305mg/L. The company said that the resource estimate was based on the results from the first well completed before the Chilean winter break of a four well resource drill programme.
The well encountered a brine aquifer from 99 metres to 311m, an aquifer thickness of 212m starting from relatively shallow depths. The presentation explained that thirty-four brine samples were collected from regular intervals with a peak lithium grade of 324 mg/L and an average grade of 305mg/L.
The company said that a further three wells will commence drilling in coming weeks to expand and upgrade the resource estimate to ‘Measured’ and ‘Indicated’ categories and reiterated that a scoping study will commence at Francisco Basin in 4Q22 for an expected base case production rate of 20,000T of lithium per annum.
CleanTech announced that its total resources now exceed 2mT of Lithium when Francisco Basin is combined with its Laguna Verde project.
Green mining
Aldo Boitano, the company’s chief executive officer said in an investor’s call yesterday (10th October): “We are trying to move away from the traditional [energy-intensive and environmentally-damaging] way that lithium is currently extracted to develop the ‘greenest’ lithium project in the world. We are not hard rock mining or using evaporation ponds – we’re looking to do the projects based on a low-impact, low-intensity, sustainable process of extraction.”
As previously reported CleanTech Lithium has developed a process that avoids mining and evaporation, called Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE). Under DLE underground saltwater is pumped to processing unit, resin and chemistry is then used to extract only lithium, and spent brine re-injected into the ground, leading to no evaporation ponds and no aquifer depletion. Boitano explained that the process would be entirely driven by renewable energy, so the company would leave a minimal carbon footprint.
The key to DLE, said Boitano, is having complete control of the area you are operating in, which CleanTech has, being the only operator on both basins, as “you have to inject 100% of the spent brine – minus the lithium – back into the aquifers.”
The company listed on AIM March 2022 at 30p and raised a total of GBP9.6m in pre-IPO and IPO funds. It has three lithium projects in Chile, a total licence area of more than 500 km2: Laguna Verde, which has a tenement of 67Km2, Francisco Basin with a licence area of 110Km2, and Llamara with a licence area of 357Km2.
Boitano said on the call: “…the money we raised [pre-IPO and IPO] will carry us over to pre-feasibility, but if we want to do more drilling in the future we’ll have to raise some more.”
“In the next week,” said Boitano, “we will be mobilising for [further work on] Francisco Basin and resume drilling as we have set up camp sites. We are advancing with the scoping study, the environmental baseline and working towards the hydro-geology model.”
Pleasant surprise
Boitano explained that the results of the Francisco Basin drilling project was a pleasant surprise as they drilled deeper and found the aquifer in good condition and easier to access.
Boitano also commented on Llamara, a new greenfield project. The company has historic geophysics maps done by oil and gas companies but plans to do its own. They company has already collected lithium surface sample. “There’s no question there’s brine down there,” Boitano said, “and we just need to commence a drilling programme, which we plan to start in November.”
The new exploration project is 344km2 – almost exactly twice the size of CleanTech’s other two projects – sitting at an elevation of 1,000m it has good infrastructure and connectivity with the Pan-American Highway running by, low-tension and high-tension power lines, substations and a port nearby. The company will have a power purchase agreement to import solar energy for the project, which will be 100% powered by renewable energy.
In the next six-to-12 months the company is planning to prove its resource and send sample to offtakers so that they can verify the grade of lithium. The company is increasingly getting approaches from various trading houses looking to offtake the resource, and a number of companies approaching the company to become strategic investors. The company hopes that once the company finishes the scoping study it will start to negotiate with offtakers and strategic investors.
Holding back
To date the company has purposely decided not to enter any offtake agreements – one of the only lithium miners that have not given any offtake agreements – and the plan is to secure a strategic, cornerstone partner looking for supply of material, but also able to help provide construction finance and mobilise the banks in their home countries to provide the debt financing that will be needed to take the project into production.Cleantech also recently published a resource upgrade for its Laguna Verde project in Chile (13th September). The company announced an upgraded JORC-compliant resource estimate of 1.51 million tonnes (Mt) of lithium carbonate equivalent, at a grade of 206mg/L lithium at Laguna Verde.
The majority of the resource was upgraded from ‘Inferred’ to the higher confidence categories of ‘Measured’ and ‘Indicated’ and offers the base line for the company’s planned pre-feasibility study (PFS) of the Laguna Verde asset. The company has announced that it will commence the PFS in 4Q22, which it hopes will prove its base assumption that Laguna Verde will develop to become a carbon-neutral 20,000 tonnes per annum (Tpa) lithium project.
CleanTech Lithium opened trading on 11th October at 39p and has offered a 30% return since IPO and a market cap of GBP30m.
