Lake Resources achieves Kachi direct lithium extraction milestone
Lake Resources (ASX: LKE) has completed one of the largest direct lithium extraction (DLE) projects ever attempted with a new assessment of material from the Kachi project in Argentina.
The Saltworks Technologies lithium carbonate test program successfully produced a significant amount of battery grade lithium carbonate from a Lilac DLE lithium chloride eluate solution.
“Most DLE lithium carbonate announcements are based on a few kilograms of carbonate produced on a lab bench scale unit; we’ve produced more lithium carbonate than most DLE projects under development.
This gives us great confidence in our process,” said Lake’s chief executive officer David Dickson.
Extended testing program
Lake delivered 120,000 litres of concentrated lithium chloride eluate to Saltworks Technologies in British Columbia for this carbonate production test work.
The eluate was initially produced at the Kachi Lilac Solutions DLE demonstration plant in Catamarca Province, Argentina.
The demonstration plant has already produced over 150,000 litres of eluate and processed over 3 million litres of Kachi brine and is expected to produce over 200,000 litres of eluate and process close to 4 million litres of Kachi brine from multiple wells before it is shut down in October.
“The extraction technology is now proven, and we are concentrating on designing well-structured project schedules for a facility with a target design life of 25 years at Kachi,” Mr Dickson said.
He said Saltworks had successfully demonstrated the Kachi commercial flowsheet unit operations in the processing of the 120,000 litres of eluate solution.
According to Mr Dickson, these results, along with the recent successful extraction and injection testing, showed that the DLE process at Kachi was being paired with high-yield, production-scale extraction wells.
“Process plant design is underway, we have good optionality with our power supply, and environmental and community consultations are well underway, so we are very happy with the progress.”
“We have drilled deeper for better grades and improved our drilling performance by 40% this year.”
“Grades from recent extraction tests are 20 percent higher than exploration samples and we can expect further JORC updates prior to publishing the Phase 1 DFS results,” he said.
Mr Dickson added that Lake remained on track for completion of a bankable definitive feasibility study (DFS) in December.
Technology cross over
In a recent presentation, Mr Dickson highlighted the potential for lithium developers to take on board the experience and know-how that has been generated by the oil and gas industry.
He told attendees at the event that recognising the clear parallels between lithium extraction via DLE and oil and gas projects helped to shape a prudent re-evaluation and refresh of Lake’s approach to developing Kachi.
In particular, he noted that the process of producing lithium using DLE is a natural fit for those with oil and gas experience, especially in specialty chemicals.
They can leverage expertise in drilling, subsurface pumping, large, complex capital project execution (including permitting, costing, execution, and scheduling), supply chain knowledge, risk management, expertise in logistics and transporting liquids, as well as expertise in chemicals processing and refining, which includes technology development.
Oil and gas companies eyeing off new energy opportunities
Mr Dickson says there are multiple factors pushing oil and gas companies into energy transition, including investigating battery metal opportunities.
This includes the proliferation of climate-related policies and regulation, progressively cheaper low-carbon alternatives, investor pressure, and changing consumer preferences that are driving oil and gas companies to energy transition.
He told delegates that oil and gas players are reinventing themselves as “energy” companies and making significant investments in offshore wind, hydrogen, CCUS2, sustainable fuels, and circular economy, to name a few.
“Producing lithium from salars is similar to the crude oil extraction and petrochemical process with some obvious advantages for lithium such as shorter well depths, lower safety risks, smaller plants, lower complexity handling non-flammable liquids at lower pressures, etc.”
“Oil and gas talent continues to seek new opportunities in energy transition industries. A significant portion of Lake’s resource pool are ex-oil and gas.”
The company has recently recruited a management, technical and operations team with significant expertise across oil and gas, lithium and other extractive industries to address what has been labelled “project reset”.