American Salars to acquire 60% of Pocitos lithium project in Argentina

American Salars will acquire 60% of the Pocitos advanced exploration lithium project in the Argentine province of Salta through an agreement with fellow Canadian company Recharge Resources. 

Pocitos, which is in the salt flat of the same name, is divided into an 800ha block (Pocitos 1) for American Salars and another 532ha block (Pocitos 2) that will continue under the control of Recharge Resources.

In total, they have inferred resources of 760,000t of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), according to an estimate from last year, American Salars said in a statement on Monday. The final amount of the transaction is yet to be defined.

CEO Nick Horsley said American Salars will carry out more studies to update the resources of the project, where a concentration of 169ppm has been recorded at a depth of 363m.

In addition, a direct extraction technology patented by Australian company Ekosolve has been piloted, achieving an efficiency in the extraction of lithium from brine of 94%.

The samples, examined at the University of Melbourne, have indicated production of lithium carbonate with a purity of 99.8%, American Salars said in the statement.

The Pocitos technical report can be seen in the Documents box in the top-right corner of the screen.

Among the next steps, a new drilling program will be caried out in Pocitos 1 and an environmental impact assessment will be prepared, the company said.

Pocitos is 10km from gas, electricity and accommodation sources, in addition to being close to the cities of Salta in Argentina and Antofagasta in Chile where there is a large seaport.

This move by American Salars adds to the purchase it made in March of the Candela II project, located in the Salar de Incahuasi in the same area of Salta under a deal with fellow Vancouver-based companies Spey Resources and AIS Resources. 

American Salars is confident in the boom in demand for lithium. “By 2040, more lithium will be required per month than everything exploited in 2021,” it said in a corporate presentation this month.