ASX-listed Galan Lithium says extensional drilling at its wholly-owned Hombre Muerto West, or “HMW” lithium project in Catamarca Province, Argentina, has further underlined its status as a major lithium brine resource.
The company said the probe has extended the project’s resource to the east and enriched its hydrogeological model which could lead to production upside.
The work follows a recent geophysical program that highlighted a string of new exploration targets Galan says it will aggressively drill during the year.
The drillhole was completed at the company's Pata Pila license area and was drilled to a depth of 450m.
According to Galan, its latest bore could stretch the company’s brine potential a further 800m from the existing drill hole and within just 1km of New York Stock Exchange-listed Livent Corporation’s tenement boundary.
The aim of the campaign was to expand the company’s understanding of its Pata Pila licence area and beef up its hydrogeological models to confirm reserve estimates at HMW.
The probe was also devised to amass geological data that could stretch the existing mineral resource at HMW.
Galan said core logging indicates the region's geology is dominated by rich sand-dominant lithologies, significant indicators of brine-bearing producing aquifers.
It says a subsequent downhole geophysics program confirmed the presence of the high-porosity sand units, which means it could deliver even greater yields due to the material’s hydraulic conductivity.
The results from its latest campaign will now be fed into a revised mineral resource estimate for the HMW project that is anticipated for later this year.
The company will also shift focus from exploratory diamond drilling to a sequence of geophysical targets that could deliver even more lithium.
Outside its drilling campaign, Galan is charging ahead with a pilot plant at HMW and says the project's first evaporation pond is almost filled. Once complete, the company aims to launch evaporation test work on the brine.
Results from the initial evaporation trial will be used to calibrate a simulation model to predict how long it will take the pilot plant to produce the first batch of brine concentrate with a lithium content of 6 per cent – a number well above traditional figures of between 1-2 per cent by other explorers.
HMW has a lithium equivalent resource of more than 2 million tonnes and with plenty of new targets to chase, this figure could be set to expand.
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