Voltaic Minerals (VLT.V) announced it has entered into an agreement with Enertrex Corporation to use its Selective Lithium Process, as Enertrex has developed a system to selectively extract the lithium from brines. Voltaic wants to see if the technology could work on its own project as it could boost the economics of any lithium operation.
In a first phase, the companies will test the technology on a mixture ‘resembling the historic results that were collected out of the existing oil and gas wells at the Green Energy project’, and Voltaic hopes Enertrex’ method will place it at the lower end of the production cost curve. After this Phase I program which is expected to take 90 days, Voltaic will immediately move to a second phase (should the objectives of the test be met), which will focus on finetuning the process to maximize the recovery rate of the lithium from the brines. Voltaic will only build a pilot plant after a successful outcome of the Phase II test results.
In other news, Voltaic has now also completed the sale of its Stonewall lithium project to MacArthur Minerals (MMS.V) as the latter has now completed its due diligence on the project after an auger drill program confirmed the existence of lithiums on the claims with a grade of 35-146 parts per million. That actually is a very low average grade (the lithium brines in Argentina have an average grade of 400-800 ppm), but keep in mind an Auger program only scratches the surface and the grade should actually increase at depth, something MacArthur will know as well.
As consideration for the sale of the property, Voltaic will receive 2 million shares of MacArthur and US$50,000 in cash. When the exchange approves the deal, Voltaic will be awarded with an additional 1M shares, followed by another cash payment of US$50,000 and an additional US$100,000 or 1M common shares of MacArthur. These 3 million shares (assuming the final payment will be made in cash) currently have a value of almost C$200,000 and will allow Voltaic Minerals to retain exposure to the Stonewall project, as MacArthur will try to unlock more value at the property.
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