PUR secures approvals for lithium pilot plant

Our lithium Investment Pursuit Minerals (ASX: PUR) just received environmental approvals to move its pilot plant to its lithium project in Argentina, and to drill the next hole there.

PUR's project already has a 1.26Mt Lithium Carbonate Equivalent (LCE) JORC resource...

AND a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) showing a US$364M Net Present Value (NPV) for a planned 5,000tpa lithium operation.

(PUR is also nearing completion of addendums to that PFS, which are looking at the feasibility of expanding production beyond 5,000tpa and producing a lithium chloride product.)

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Today's approvals cover two main things.

First, the pilot plant.

PUR's pilot plant has already produced 99.5% lithium carbonate using brines from the project, but it did that from a facility away from site.

The plan now is to move the plant to the project itself.

Today's approval lets PUR do just that, to transport 76 items of plant equipment to site and allow eight eight pilot ponds to be built and a storage facility to support them.

Running the plant on site, using the project's own brines under real operating conditions would be more than a proof of concept in the project as a whole.

Especially as the plan is for a 5,000tpa commercial operation from this pilot plant, which if successful would provide a strong platform for a larger operation..

PUR has also just submitted the environmental application for the commercial scale evaporation ponds that the 5,000tpa operation needs.

Here is a look at some of the planning included today:

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Second, the next drill hole.

PUR is now approved to drill a ~500m hole at Demasía, on the ground it recently acquired around the salt lake.

The drill pad for this hole is under construction now.

This hole will fill in the gap between PUR's earlier resource drilling (where the current resource was based off) and the hole it just completed on the margins of the salt lake further north.

That hole to the north is now finished after drilling and testing down to ~560m.

The first assays from it came back at 809mg/L lithium (PUR's highest ever grade from the project) - we covered that result last week here.

Now we wait on the rest of those assays, along with progress to get drilling going at hole 4:.

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We cover PUR's salt-lake margins exploration theory in our deep dive here: PUR: Lithium back. Market back? Drilling just started on the "blue sky" target

PUR’s gold project had a quick update

PUR also said six initial drill holes have now been planned at its gold-silver project in Argentina, where maiden drilling is expected this month.

There is ongoing works an planning that is targeting a 2nd followup drill program already which is planned to be covering a much broader area.

It is targeting these 3 areas with known mineralised structures:

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This is the project that sits on a similar geological setting, ~100km to the south of $181BN capped Newmont’s Cerro Negro, an 8million ounce gold mine.

We covered this project in our recent Deep Dive here: PUR also has a gold-silver asset that we like (also in Argentina)

What’s next for PUR?

🔄 Lithium asset (Drilling started early July)

PUR kicked off its drill program on this project recently.

We have been waiting for a hole to be put into this part of PUR’s project for a few years now so it will be interesting to see what comes from it.

We are hoping to see PUR hit grades similar to what its Canadian peer did when it drilled on the edges of the salt lake (up to 925m/li).

Last week PUR received some early assays, which included a sample of 809mg/L lithium across ~5m at ~400m depth. (source)

Today PUR confirmed drilling will move to hole number 4, in between the recently completed hole and the existing resource:

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🔲 Drilling at PUR’s gold-silver project in Argentina

PUR also owns 100% of an earlier stage gold-silver project in Argentina.

On that project PUR is hunting an 8M ounce "Cerro Negro lookalike" gold discovery.

Cerro Negro is the 8 million ounce mine owned by US$112BN capped Newmont, ~100km north of PUR's ground.

Recently on that project ~55% of priority mapping was complete and an IP survey was underway to define targets - with maiden drilling to follow "in the near term". (source)

Recently PUR confirmed that this mapping and field work had been completed with drilling expected in September (source)

See why we like that project from the acquisition in a Deep Dive here: PUR: Acquires Gold Project in Argentina - Gold price smashing records