TSX-listed Lithium Americas Corp (LAC), which last month announced positive results for a preliminary study on its Cauchari-Olaroz brine project, in Argentina, has signed an agreement to increase its acreage at the property by 20%.

The deal, made with an unnamed private owner, lifts LAC’s land package in what is the third-biggest known lithium brine deposit globally to 82 498 ha.

The company aims to start production at a lithium carbonate pilot plant in the third quarter, which will make a 99,5%-purity lithium carbon- ate product.

First production of industrial-scale lithium carbonate is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2011, with a definitive feasibility study on the Cauchari-Olaroz project due by the end of March next year.

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