The lithium carbonate was produced from the DLE (direct lithium extraction) eluent of the ILiad pilot that operated on the Prairie venture from November 2023 to February 2024. The DLE eluent was despatched to Saltworks’ facility in British Columbia, the place it was transformed into battery-grade materials.
“Producing battery grade lithium carbonate from our flowsheet is a vital step in displaying the market the standard of product that we will produce,” Arizona Lithium managing director Paul Lloyd said in an August 6 press launch.
“The battery-grade product we produced is in enough portions to exit to all of the offtakers and strategic companions we’re in dialog with,” he added.
The Prairie venture is house to a big brine useful resource positioned within the coronary heart of Saskatchewan’s Williston Basin, inside a area traditionally recognized for its oil manufacturing. The useful resource is estimated at 6.3 million tonnes in lithium carbonate equal (LCE), comprising 4.8 million indicated and 1.5 million inferred.
Primarily based on a December 2023 preliminary feasibility examine, the Prairie venture would have a mine lifetime of 20 years, averaging 6,000 tonnes of LCE manufacturing every year. Its after-tax internet current worth (at 8% low cost fee) is estimated at $312 million, with an inside fee of return of 20.4% and a couple of.2-year payback.
The venture makes use of standard oil and fuel drilling strategies to entry the lithium-rich brine from aquifers about 2.3 km underground. DLE expertise is used to separate lithium from the brine, and the extracted lithium focus is then transformed onsite to an upgraded high-purity materials.
The primary section of manufacturing drilling at Prairie started in Might 2024, beginning with three pads, every unbiased of each other with a goal annual manufacturing of two,000 tonnes of LCE. Two of the pads have already been constructed. The primary industrial manufacturing effectively was drilled on Pad #1.
Within the close to time period, the Australia-based lithium developer is aiming to convey Pad #1 on the Prairie venture into manufacturing by 2025 whereas it advances its different core asset, the 100%-owned Huge Sandy lithium venture in Arizona.