Alpha Lithium drills 352 metres of 351 mg/L Li at Totillar Salar, Argentina
Alpha Lithium Corp. [ALLI-TSXV; ALLIF-OTC; 2P61-FSE reported drill results from its original six-well program, an essential component of its initial exploration campaign on the 100%-owned, 27,500-hectare, Tolillar Salar in Salta Province, Argentina.
The objectives for the initial campaign were to improve understanding of the conceptual hydrogeological model of the salar and determine lithium grades and hydraulic parameters for the brine aquifer. Both objectives were successfully achieved and provided confidence to continue with a second exploration campaign.
To date, Alpha has drilled six exploratory holes to varying depths. The first well was very shallow and drilled primarily to confirm and provide a baseline for the original Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) geophysical survey completed in 2020. The remaining five production holes were drilled to depths of between 78 and 352 metres. Brine samples were collected during testing of each well and sent for analysis to SGS Laboratory in Salta.
Drilling results demonstrated continual improvement and the most recently tested wellbores encountered consistent lithium grades of between 345 and 351 mg/L.
The first three exploration wells encountered lithium grades ranging from 194 to 218 mg/L from pumping tests with flow rates ranging between 55 and 100 m3/hour. The flow rate on the final hole, with 351 mg/L of lithium concentration, reached 130 m3/hour. A higher pump rate was feasible but was limited by the maximum achievable capacity of the pumping equipment.
In addition to high flow rates and lithium concentrations, the Tolillar Salar also produced brine with very low levels of impurities. For example, the range of magnesium to lithium ratios (“Mg:Li”) was between 4.90 and 5.37, with an average for the five wells at 5.0, a top quartile result for salars in Argentina.
Brad Nichol, President and CEO commented, “We are obviously very satisfied to present the fantastic results for our first chapter of drilling in the Tolillar Salar. The original wellbore drilled by previous owners in 2018 resulted in 204 mg/L of lithium from samples taken at 190 metres and a calculated transmissibility of 60 m3/hour. This drilling program produced better than a 70% improvement in lithium concentration and a more than 300% improvement in reservoir transmissibility.”
Nichol added, “What’s more, our technical team studied and tweaked in real time and continually improved the results leaving us with enormous confidence to undertake a second, larger campaign focused on the delivery of a resource.”
Based on the early success, the company has undertaken drilling two additional production wells and two fresh-water wells on the Tolillar Salar. Two of these wells have been drilled and are awaiting testing and a third well is currently being drilled.
Now armed with continually improved geological and hydrogeological models, the company is planning and licensing to drill another 10 or more production wells and expand the geophysics study to include another 70 points of VES soundings (more than double the original VES survey).
The objective for the second campaign is to define and expand the lithium resource using a combination of VES surveys, core-holes, production wells and pressure-monitoring wellbores.