Monumental Minerals (TSXV: MNRL) has signed a cope with Lithium Chile (TSXV: LITH; US-OTC: LTMCF) to have the choice to amass as much as 75% of the Salar De Laguna Blanca challenge in northeastern Chile.
Below the deal, Monumental should pay $1.5 million and spend the identical quantity on exploring the Laguna challenge inside three years. Lithium Chile will even maintain 9.9% of Monumental’s shares.
As soon as Monumental acquires a 75% curiosity within the challenge, each firms will execute a three way partnership settlement to develop the property, the junior firm mentioned.
Monumental CEO Jamil Sader described Laguna Blanca as a “important addition” to the corporate’s portfolio that features the early stage Jemi uncommon earth component challenge in Mexico. “Lithium is a required part within the manufacture of EV batteries, and it’s projected that the availability merely will be unable to fulfill demand,” mentioned Sader.
However the challenge isn’t nearly lithium, the CEO mentioned, including that cesium is a giant a part of the story at Laguna Blanca.
“The floor sediments comprise as much as 692 ppm cesium. So far as we’ve been capable of decide, no different sedimentary cesium deposit has been recognized… nearly the complete world cesium provide comes from the Tanco mine in Manitoba,” Sader mentioned. “The corporate that owns the mine is a non-public Chinese language entity, which ships 100% of the ore to China for processing.”
Political threat
Latest proposals in Chile’s mining sector, which embrace a brand new plan to open the door to the nationalization of some important copper and lithium mines and talks of stricter environmental and social rules, have put worldwide miners in Chile on the sting. Sader, although, doesn’t anticipate his firm’s newest acquisition to be impacted.
“There have been talks about nationalization. However Chile has been by means of this earlier than, and I don’t suppose it’s a highway that the inhabitants finally needs to go down once more,” he mentioned. “The danger seems to be low for Chile, which is an investor-stable jurisdiction. Even in Peru, politicians that talked about nationalizing mining have since backed off that narrative.”
He additional mentioned that the corporate was “forward of the curve on Laguna Blanca,” and that its companion Lithium Chile had already performed local people engagement and outreach and are additionally exploring direct lithium extraction (DLE) expertise, which minimizes freshwater use, reduces land use, and produces much less greenhouse fuel emissions.
Positioned at a zone inside the central Andes excessive desert, which in line with the corporate comprises greater than half of the world’s lithium provide beneath the numerous salt flats referred to as salars, the early exploration stage Laguna property covers 5,200 hectares.
Preliminary reconnaissance and geochemical surveys overlaying the majority of the laguna advanced had been performed between 2018 and 2021 by Lithium Chile. Assays of water samples taken from floor lagunas and subsurface that had been 0.5 to 1.3 metres deep ranged from 780 to 1230 mg/l lithium and 20 to 40 mg/l cesium.
Assays from sediment samples ranged from 250 to 1450 ppm lithium and 75 to 692 ppm cesium.
At presstime in Toronto, Monumental was buying and selling at 45¢ per share, up 3.5¢ or 8.5%, inside a 52-week buying and selling vary of 27¢ and 79¢. The corporate has 21 million widespread shares excellent for a market cap of $10.5 million.
