1st Oct 2014 07:25
LONDON (Alliance News) - Bacanora Minerals Ltd Wednesday said it will start a significant drilling and exploration programme at the Sonara Lithium project in early November, and is working with several industry consultants to design a full-scale lithium plant and mining operation capable of up to 50,000 tonnes a year of lithium carbonate equivalent.
Bacanora has been reporting a string of good news from the project in northern Mexico, culminating in the mineral resource being increased by 37% in June. It now has a defined indicated mineral resource of 3.26 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent on the project.
In a statement, Bacanora said the drilling and exploration programme will focus on the La Ventana concession, but will also cover the Megalit, El Sauz and Fleur concessions. The planned programme will consist of at least 5,000 metres of diamond core drilling, a five-fold increase in drilling compared with the last stage of drilling it undertook.
The objectives of the latest programme will be infill drilling to determine a detailed open-pit design and upgrade the resource estimated from indicated to measured, integrate the results into a mine plan which can be included in pre-feasibility studies which will be used for the development of the deposit, step-out drilling to expand known resources, and testing targets identified through mapping and prospecting on the Megalit concessions.
"In addition to the planned drilling program, the company will begin trenching on the Buenavista area of the Megalit concession to provide bulk clay samples for metallurgical testing," it said.
It said it has appointed Process Engineering LLC to design a plant capable of delivering 50,000 tonnes per year of lithium carbonate, while Bacanora has begun testing for the recovery of lithium hydroxide from the Project. It is developing these processes to meet potential new requirements from the electric vehicle market and is actively working with a number of potential off-take customers.
Bacanora's statement was welcomed by joint venture partner Rare Earth Minerals PLC. Rare Earth has a 12% stake in Bacanora, a 30% direct interest in the Fleur-El Sauz lithium joint venture and a 30% direct interest in the Megalit joint venture. That means it has a 38.40% economic interest in each of those joint ventures.
"REM's shareholders have been starved of information on this exciting Lithium Project for some time and we feel that this is the beginning of a very exciting expansion, development and reporting period for the company," Rare Earth Minerals Chairman David Lenigas said in a statement.
Bacanora Minerals shares were up 0.9% at 1.16 pence early Wednesday, while Rare Earth Minerals was up 3.3% at 1.44 pence.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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Related Shares:
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