Argentina Lithium & Energy Corp. (TSXV: LIT | FSE: OAY3 | OTC: PNXLF) has accelerated its exploration plans for 2024, following a major financing agreement with Peugeot Citroen Argentina S.A., a subsidiary of Stellantis N.V.
The revised programme will complete up to 30 drill holes at the company’s Antofalla North project, with a goal of bringing it to a resource delineation stage shortly on the heels of the company’s flagship Rincon West project, where the 11th of 20 planned exploration drill holes is underway.
Miles Rideout, vice president of exploration commented, “Our 2023 field work focused on drilling Rincon West was extremely successful in identifying lithium-rich brines and advancing the project. At the same time, we assembled the large Antofalla North property package adjacent and to the north of Albemarle Corp’s lithium project and now that we are funded, we will be as aggressive as possible to advance the project alongside Rincon West.”
“While Antofalla North is undrilled, our previous CSAMT geophysics show conductive units in horizontal bedding, extending to approximately 500m depth. Based on these results and historic prospective results reported from elsewhere on the salar, we hope to delineate another major source of lithium in brines at Antofalla. Our property package at Antofalla is more than twice as large as Rincon West, and exploration success here would be a breakthrough.” Said Mr. Rideout.
Further, Argentina Lithium has expanded exploration programme plans for its pipeline projects, Pocitos and Incahuasi. These are earlier stage projects and are generally expected to be advanced second to the work at the Rincon and Antofalla salars.
However, with permits and funding secured, the company is in the process of mobilizing a geophysics crew to the Pocitos Salar to begin a reconnaissance programme of 170 line-km of TEM surveying on the 26,221ha of properties. The new Pocitos programme represents an increase of approximately 40% from the previous plans.
Nikolaos Cacos, CEO, commented, “We expect 2024 to be a transformative year for the company, one in which we can significantly advance towards resource delineation at our two primary projects. We have cleared the biggest hurdle for any junior today, which is having financing secured for all the planned exploration activity, to the tune of up to US$15M next year alone if we complete all of our plans. In fact, the Stellantis funding is expected to carry us through exploration drilling to potential resource definition and initial engineering study stages at Rincon West and Antofalla North, allowing us to build value with minimal dilution for our investors.”
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