Lake Resources to begin generating greater amounts of lithium carbonate for offtake evaluation
Lake Resources anticipates evaluation of its high-purity lithium carbonate equivalent product will lead to binding offtake deals.
Lake Resources (ASX: LKE) revealed it plans to produce a much larger batch of high purity 99.9% lithium carbonate equivalent for interested offtake parties, with 20,000 litres of brines currently being transported from the company’s Kachi project in Argentina.
The brines are en-route to Lilac Solutions’ ion exchange plant in California and are expected to arrive within two weeks.
Last week, Lake reported it had generated a 99.9% pure battery grade lithium from Kachi brines using Lilac’s disruptive technology, with the final product also possessing “very low” impurities.
The 20,000l shipment of brine on its way from Kachi will undergo the same process and is expected to produce a much bigger amount of lithium carbonate samples of similar purity.
Lake managing director Steve Promnitz said larger volumes of battery grade lithium will be send to offtake parties that are currently in negotiations with the company.
He added that he expects assessments will lead to binding agreements.
“Lake has undertaken a considerable amount of business development in the past 24 months to build visibility in the battery and electric vehicle sectors.”
“During this time, we have presented our projects and future product to a large number of industry players, which include highly recognised global brands.”
He added this work has been “considerable” and the company anticipated it will “pay dividends” this year as it re-engages offtake partners and begins the qualification process for its lithium carbonate material.
Kachi lithium brine project
According to Lake, Kachi hosts one of the world’s top 10 lithium brine resources with its current estimate of 4.4 million tonnes of contained lithium carbonate equivalent.
However, Lake anticipates even greater potential for the project with an exploration target of 8-17Mt of lithium carbonate equivalent across the asset’s 70,400 hectares.
Part of the project’s appeal is the Lilac process which Lake claims places Kachi’s proposed production costs in the lowest cost quartile globally with high recoveries of up to 90% compared to other operations which typically achieve recoveries below 50%.
The process also offers a sustainable solution with brine returned to aquifers once the lithium has been extracted.
This system removes the need for traditional evaporation ponds.
By mid-afternoon trade, Lake’s share price had lifted 8.51% to $0.051.