JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Multilisted mineral resources company Wealth Minerals on Thursday announced that it intends to acquire a 100% royalty-free interest in 144 exploration concessions in Antofagasta’s Atacama Salar in Region II, northern Chile.

The company had signed a letter of intent on Tuesday, which gives it the right to enter into an option agreement to acquire the concessions, collectively referred to as the Proyecto Atacama Lithium.

Wealth Minerals CEO Henk van Alphen highlighted the Atacama Salar as a premier lithium asset, which accounts for about a third of yearly global lithium production.

“Chile is a great mining jurisdiction and we are delighted to be a part of that country’s burgeoning lithium industry. Wealth’s position in Atacama will firmly place the company in an exclusive peer group and the team looks forward to exciting times as we advance the Atacama and Trinity projects,” he said.

The Atacama Salar is the world’s highest-grade and largest producing lithium brine deposit. It currently produces about a third of global lithium output from two production facilities operated by Sociedad Quimica y Minera (SQM) and Rockwood Lithium.

Atacama contains a very high grade of both lithium (1 840 mg/) and potassium (22 630 mg/). It also has a high rate of evaporation (3 200 mm/y) and extremely low rainfall (15 mm/y on average). These characteristics make Atacama's finished lithium carbonate easier and cheaper to produce than its peer group globally.

Wealth Minerals highlights evaporation time as a key factor in lithium production costs and notes that Atacama Salar’s evaporation rate is the highest in the lithium industry.

The concessions that Wealth Minerals is looking to acquire cover about 46 200 ha, located in the northern portion of the Salar de Atacama. They are contiguous with concessions owned by BHP Billiton, SQM and the Chilean Economic Development Agency (CORFO). Both SQM and Rockwood have large-scale production facilities in the salar, located on the ground held by CORFO. They collectively produce over 6 000 t/y of lithium carbonate equivalent and account for 100% of Chile’s current lithium output.

Wealth Minerals noted that the concessions are in the process of being constituted and it has preferential rights over the area that they cover. Once constituted, they will be valid for two years and may be extended for an additional two years upon relinquishment of 50% of the area.

Together with its Trinity project, Wealth Minerals now holds exclusive rights to acquire more than 50 000 ha of lithium brine properties in northern Chile.