Name of the Project
Falchani lithium project.

Location
The Macusani plateau, in the Puno district of south-eastern Peru.

Project Owner/s
American Lithium.

Project Description
Falchani is the sixth-biggest, hard-rock lithium deposit in the world.

An independent preliminary economic assessment (PEA) has demonstrated the project’s ability to become a large, long-life producer of low-cost, high-quality and low-impurity battery-grade lithium carbonate.

The Falchani project is highly amenable for development using conventional openpit truck-and-shovel methods.

The base case, which encompasses the entire mineral resource estimate for the Falchani and Ocacasa 4 concessions, envisages the production of 63 000 t/y of battery-grade lithium carbonate over 33 years, increasing to 85 000 t/y at a steady-state throughput of six-million tonnes a year.

The PEA includes the construction of a 1 700 t/d sulphur-burning acid plant on site to produce, on average, 1 500 t/d of sulphuric acid. In subsequent phases, additional modules are added to meet expanded processing capacity.

The PEA also represents an alternative case, which includes only the mineral resources from the Falchani concession. The alternative case will use the same operating parameters, metal price and selling costs, and consists of an openpit mine and an associated processing facility, as well as on- and off-site infrastructure.

In this scenario, the project is projected to have a 26-year mine life, with Phase 1 having a milling rate of 1.5-million tonnes a year and Phase 2 three-million tonnes a year.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
At a base case of $12 000/t lithium carbonate, the project has a pretax net present value, at an 8% discount rate, of $2.71-billion and an internal rate of return of 24.2%, with a payback of 4.3 years (undiscounted).

Capital Expenditure
Initial capital expenditure is estimated at $587-million.

Planned Start/End Date
The construction period has been scoped for 24 months.

Latest Developments
American Lithium has started the environmental work required for a prefeasibility study (PFS) on the Falchani project with the initiation of an environmental-impact assessment (EIA) with SRK Peru.

The EIA process will be run in parallel with work to update the company’s existing PEA on the project and the company believes that both these steps will position it to fast-track a PFS.

The SRK-led EIA will provide all the environmental work needed to complete a PFS on the Falchani project, including enabling any additional drilling required.

Lima-headquartered environmental services company EDASI SAC has been contracted to immediately start detailed hydrological/hydrogeological studies at Falchani, focusing on the upper 150 m below the surface to investigate water table parameters.

Moreover, permits have been submitted to the relevant authorities for biological/hydrobiological monitoring studies and required cultural/archaeological work for the EIA.

It is expected that the EIA will also allow for any additional drilling required for the PFS to start later this year.

In the interim, and in parallel with the EIA work, American Lithium has said that it remains focused on launching planned infill and extension drilling in and around the Falchani deposit as soon as possible.

It continues to work closely with its communities to keep approvals current as it awaits final regulatory permits for this exploration/development drill programme.

American Lithium expects that infill/extension drilling will start once the hydrological/hydrogeological studies have been completed over next few weeks.

The existing Falchani PEA will be updated by year-end for anticipated resource reclassification and/or extension following drilling, and to include potential by-product production.

Key Contracts, Suppliers and Consultants
DRA, working with ANSTO Minerals, with input from M.Plan International (process flowsheet)

Contact Details for Project Information
American Lithium, tel +1 604 428 6128 or email Info@americanlithiumcorp.com.