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Wealth Minerals (TSXV: WML) is calling the positive preliminary economic assessment (PEA) of its Kuska lithium salar project in Chile an important milestone. The property, formerly called Ollague, is located about 200 km north from Atacama.
The PEA gives the project a pre-tax, pre-royalty net present value with a 10% discount of $1.65 billion and an internal rate of return 33%. The after-tax numbers are $1.15 billion and 28%, respectively.
Baseline capital expenditures are estimated at $749 million, including $44 million to be spent on additional exploration and permitting. The operating expense is estimated to be $5,849 per tonne of lithium carbonate produced.
Mining operations will consist of a well field with brine pumping capacity and a reinjection feed system to return depleted brine into the salar. A direct lithium extraction method to be followed by a refining will produce 99.5%+ lithium carbonate.
The initial operation will produce 10,000 t/y lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), and that rate will be doubled with the addition of a second production module within two years.
Wealth Minerals intends to decarbonize its lithium production operations as much as possible and has begun investigations into using renewable energy supplies that will power the production plant and associated infrastructure. Both solar and geothermal energy sources will be considered.
The resource estimate, published a year ago, has indicated resources of 741,000 tonnes LCE in material grading 175 mg/L. There is also an inferred resource grading 185 mg/L.
“This is an important milestone in the development of our lithium projects in Chile and brings us one step closer to execution and production. Our Kuska project is being developed consistently with the national lithium strategy defined earlier this year by the Chilean government,” the company’s Chile operative CEO Franciso Lepeley said in a release.
“We are incorporating into our development plan the use of environmentally friendly DLE technology, the active involvement and collaboration of the Quechua indigenous community, and prospective industry partnerships that may facilitate downstream processing of lithium into value-added products,” Lepeley added.
