Arizona Lithium Limited (ASX: AZL, AZLOA, OTC: AZLAF) (“Arizona Lithium” or “the Company”), a leader in sustainable lithium development in North America, is thrilled to announce a major upgrade in the total resource of its Prairie Lithium Project (“Prairie”). The project's Lithium Carbonate Equivalent (LCE) resources have been increased to 6.3 Million Tonnes (MT), a significant rise from the previously reported 5.7 MT LCE.
This substantial increase is primarily attributed to the successful acquisition and resource assessment of newly leased lands, adding an additional 600,000 tonnes of LCE to Prairie's resource base. Of this, approximately 500,000 tonnes are classified as Indicated. The new resource estimate comprises 4.5 MT LCE Indicated and 1.8 MT LCE Inferred.
The 6.3 MT of LCE at Prairie now represents a staggering nine years of global LCE consumption based on 2022 figures. This milestone underscores the project's potential to become a significant player in the global lithium market.
The additional resources were identified on land recently leased by AZL, encompassing a large title from a major holder in areas surrounding Prairie’s existing landholdings. These strategic locations not only enhance the project's commercial development potential but are also expected to improve future production economics.
Prairie's pilot testing has been exceptionally promising, achieving 95.6% lithium recoveries with a remarkable 99.9% rejection of impurities. Testing is set to continue into February 2023, further solidifying the project's robustness.
Looking ahead, Arizona Lithium is on track to deliver the Preliminary Feasibility Study (PFS) by the end of December 2023. Early indications suggest that Prairie will emerge as an economically robust project, poised to make a significant impact in the lithium market.
This resource upgrade marks a pivotal moment for Arizona Lithium, as the Company continues to focus on the sustainable development of its two major lithium projects in North America – the Big Sandy Lithium Project and the Prairie Lithium Project.
Arizona Lithium Managing Director, Paul Lloyd, commented: “Following AZL announcing the increased landholding at Prairie by 39,331 acres just earlier this week, the expanded project area has already proven highly strategic and value accretive, by the fact that we have added over half a million tonnes of indicated LCE resources to one of the most promising lithium brine plays in North America.
With pilot testing at Prairie well underway, initial work continue to deliver highly promising results with a steadystate of 95.6% Li (Lithium) extraction achieved, indicating that the project has significant potential to be economically robust.”
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Jane Morgan