CleanTech Lithium receives granting of licences and operational plans at Llamara

Highlights:

• The Llamara project is located within the Lithium triangle in northern Chile, 600 km north of the company´s two flagship projects, Laguna Verde and Francisco Basin.
• Historical geophysics lines completed by an oil exploration company shows an extensive subsurface low resistivity zone which is interpreted to be a brine aquifer in the project area with an aquifer thickness of several hundred metres.
• The aquifer has not been sampled for lithium, however elevated lithium grades are recorded in surface evaporite deposits, indicating a lithium source within the basin.
• A drilling programme to test the subsurface aquifer will commence in the coming weeks with the drilling of a low-cost exploration drill hole, subject to obtaining the necessary local approvals.
• The drill site was selected based on information from a geophysics survey which interprets a thick hypersaline aquifer at the location starting from a depth of approximately 240 m.
• Separately, a geology consultant has been engaged to complete a field and desk-top study on the near surface evaporite lithium mineral potential in the project area.
• If a lithium resource is established at the greenfield project, either based on the subsurface aquifer or surface evaporites, it is expected direct lithium extraction (DLE) would be utilised for processing to minimise the environmental impact of lithium extraction.
• With drilling programmes at the more advanced Laguna Verde and Francisco Basin projects ongoing, the company is extremely active with resource drilling programmes expected to be progressing at all three projects simultaneously shortly.

Commenting, Aldo Boitano, Chief Executive Officer, of Cleantech Lithium PLC, said:

“We are very pleased to have been granted the Llamara licences by the Chilean authorities, allowing us to move forward with an exploration drilling programme. This is a large licence area covering 344 km² within which a historical geophysics survey interprets a thick subsurface brine aquifer. The planned drilling will aim to establish if the brine aquifer is enriched in lithium. We will also carry out a field and desk-top study on the potential for a surface evaporite lithium deposit in the project area.

“Drilling programmes to expand existing resource estimates at our Laguna Verde and Francisco Basin projects are ongoing with Llamara providing additional exploration potential. We are not aware of any exploration company in the lithium sector that has progressed resource drill programmes at three projects concurrently, which further highlights the quality of the team we have in Chile.

“We will endeavour to keep the market up to date with our progress and expect to announce the results of the initial drilling at Llamara in early 2Q23.”

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/09022023/cleantech-lithium-receives-granting-of-licences-and-operational-plans-at-llamara/