American sustainable lithium developer Arizona Lithium Ltd has announced that the company’s Prairie Lithium Project’s lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) resources has increased to 6.3 million tonnes (MT) from 5.7 MT LCE.
This 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.
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.
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 per cent lithium recoveries with a remarkable 99.9 per cent rejection of impurities.
Testing is set to continue into February 2023, further solidifying the project’s robustness.
Arizona Lithium is currently on track to deliver the Preliminary Feasibility Study (PFS) by the end of December 2023.