Recharge Resources to drill Pocitos Project, Argentina
Recharge Resources Ltd. [CSE-RR; OTC-RECHF; FSE-SL50] has arranged for Jason Van Den Akker, a senior hydrologist and geologist with WSP Australia, to visit Pocitos 1 and 2, Argentina, with Recharge’s chief operating officer Phil Thomas during the week of March 18, 2024, in preparation for the company’s 2024 production diameter drill program for the expansion and upgrading of Recharge’s previously announced mineral resource estimate of 760,000 tonnes LCE (lithium carbonate equivalent) at its Pocitos lithium brine project near the town of Pocitos in Salta, Argentina.
The company’s key milestones are: complete analysis of MT (magnetotellurics) geophysics with WSP to confirm exact well hole locations; complete contract with Cuartz Drilling Co. for drilling wells and start date; complete contract with downhole borehole magnetic resonance geophysics for selected wells; complete drill core porosity tests for resource calculation in Australia; select wells for production from flow tests; WSP to prepare and complete upgraded mineral resource estimate; Cuartz drilling converts six to eight of the exploration HQ-diameter wells to production wells and conducts further flow tests; Ekosolve Ltd. provides engineering data and WSP completes a proven and probable reserve MRE.
CEO and director David Greenway expressed his enthusiasm for the company’s growth trajectory: “We are delighted WSP are able to visit the Pocitos project in March with the Recharge Resources team. The company will progress from an explorer to a pivotal stage defining our mineral resource estimate from a resource to a reserve when drilling is completed. This will lead to the pilot plant phase when we plan to build a small Ekosolve plant prior to expansion to 20,000 tonnes name plate production capacity.”
The Pocitos lithium brine project is located approximately 10 km from the township of Pocitos where there is gas, electricity and accommodation. The Pocitos project is approximately 1,332 hectares and is accessible by road. Collective exploration totals over US$2 million developing the project, including surface sampling, trenching, TEM (transient electromagnetic) and MT geophysics, and drilling three wells that had outstanding brine flow results.
Locations for immediate follow-up drilling have already been identified for coming exploration. Lithium values of 169 parts per million from drill hole 3 packer test assayed from laboratory analysis conducted by Alex Stewart were recorded during the project’s December 2022, drill campaigns. A double packer sampling system in HQ diamond drill holes were drilled to a depth of up to 409 metres. The flow of brine was observed to continue for more than five hours. All holes had exceptional brine flow rates.
Ekosolve produced lithium carbonate at a purity of 99.89%, where extraction of the lithium from the Pocitos brines was above 94%, that is, 159 ppm of lithium would have been recovered from 169 ppm.
The company has published a NI 43-101 compliant inferred mineral resource estimate for the Pocitos lithium brine project compiled by WSP geohydrological consultants which has been estimated at 143,000 tonnes of in situ lithium metal and 13,000 tonnes lithium metal yield (using porosity estimates), which equates to a lithium carbonate equivalent of 760,000 tonnes and 69,000 tonnes, respectively. The LCE is calculated from the ratio of lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) to Li metal (5.32:1). The calculations assume no process losses.