Galan Lithium has taken a vital step at its Hombre Muerto West, or “HMW” lithium brine project in Argentina after appointing engineering consultancy Hatch to run a feasibility study over the project. According to the company, the study is anticipated to be delivered towards the end of the new year and will firm up numbers from a previous scoping study.
Hatch is a global multidisciplinary management, engineering and development consultancy and will work with Galan’s brain trust to knock out the study.
Galan Lithium Managing Director, Juan Pablo Vargas de la Vega said:“We have been through a very thorough Feasibility Study tender, review and analysis process and are extremely delighted to award this work to Hatch. Their industry experience and support network are second to none and their vision and values very much align with those of Galan. They are a welcome addition to the team, and we look forward to working with Hatch in this important phase of the development of the HMW project.
The mineral explorer has been chipping away at various levels of exploration at the project which it plans on feeding into its DFS. A previous scoping study over the project pointed to the potential for an extraordinary 40 year mine life at HMW based on the existing known deposit – and that doesn’t include any upside from additional successful exploration.
Only a few days ago the company kicked off construction of the evaporation ponds at the project for a pilot plant that will look to generate high-grade lithium concentrate. It also fired up the drill rig to beef up its existing resource base.
According to Galan, the construction of the evaporation ponds is on track for a new year start-up and will be subsequently filled with lithium brine from the company’s HMW project to test its evaporation process for producing high-grade lithium concentrate.
Galan is also working up a geophysical survey at HMW to eke out more targets for drill-testing.
To date, the company has defined a resource at HMW of around 2.3 million tonnes with grades averaging around 946 milligrams per litre lithium.
Outside of is exploration ventures Galan recently released a stonking set of upgraded numbers from a preliminary economic assessment of HMW that point to the project spitting out about 20,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate equivalent per year across the 40 year life of the mine.
Remarkably, only about 60 per cent of HMW's existing resources were used in the economic assessment.
Perhaps the highlight of the economic study was an estimated EBITDA of US$287 million a year using a long-term average price of US$18,594 per tonne of lithium carbonate equivalent.
Galan is now looking to fire up a more comprehensive evaluation of HMW’s lithium production through its latest DFS as it scrubs the project up in readiness for lithium production.
There is no doubt that Galan has a large lithium resource on its hands now at HMW and for company followers, the DFS, which is the final step in the process before a final investment decision can be made – can’t come soon enough. And with the lithium market hitting fever pitch right now Galan’s timing could not be better.
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By Matt Birney
