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Lithium Energy poised for exploration kick-off at Argentina brine project

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Caption: Lithium Energy’s Solaroz lithium brine project in Argentina..
Camera IconCaption: Lithium Energy’s Solaroz lithium brine project in Argentina.. Credit: File

ASX-listed aspiring South American lithium developer, Lithium Energy is preparing to get boots on the ground at its Solaroz lithium brine project in Argentina in anticipation of imminent regulatory approvals being received for its environmental impact assessment. The Perth-based company says no substantive community or landowner objections were raised at recent public consultation meetings and all outstanding technical information requested after the meetings was submitted to authorities. As a result, it now expects to be able to kick off on-site exploration at Solaroz shortly.

Lithium Energy proposes to carry out geophysical surveying work up front followed by a maiden drilling program.

The $49 million market capped company’s Solaroz project is located in north-west Argentina within South America’s revered “lithium triangle” in the Salar de Olaroz Basin or Olaroz Salar.

Management says it will be looking to test an exploration target for Solaroz it recently generated following a detailed review of considerable historical geophysical survey and drilling information pertaining to the brine rich lithium aquifer hosted by the Salar de Olaroz Basin.

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The conceptual target ranges from 1.5 million tonnes to 8.7 million tonnes of contained lithium carbonate equivalent, averaging lithium concentration grades of between about 500 and 700 milligrams per litre lithium.

Solaroz has world-class lithium brine neighbours in the form of dual-listed Orocobre Ltd and Japanese trading giant and Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed Toyota Tsusho Corporation’s Olaroz lithium brine production facility.

The advanced lithium brine development project jointly owned by Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange-listed Lithium Americas Corporation and Chinese giant Ganfeng Lithium is also prominent in the region.

Orocobre and Toyota Tsusho’s long-life Olaroz operation produces lithium carbonate from lithium rich brines extracted from bore fields drilled on the salar or salt lake.

Olaroz’s brine is transferred to a series of evaporation ponds that rely on solar radiation and wind for evaporation and concentration along with a precipitation process to remove impurities.

Concentrated brine is then fed into the Olaroz lithium carbonate plant, which precipitates, filters and dries the finished high-quality lithium carbonate product.

Brisbane-based and ASX and Toronto Stock Exchange-listed Orocobre, who has recently merged with ASX-listed Galaxy Resources and has a whopping post-merger market cap of $5.7 billion, has been selling lithium carbonate from Olaroz for about the past six and a half years.

Olaroz boasts a massive measured and indicated resource of 6.4 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent and a herculean projected life of mine of more than 40 years.

Some of the extensive past geophysical survey and drilling data that Lithium Energy pored over to come up with its exploration target for Solaroz included results generated from exploration work undertaken by Orocobre adjacent to or extending into Lithium Energy’s mineral concessions.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au

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