great interview with management.https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=https://proactivo.com.pe/noticia-de-litio-en-peru-sigue-levantando-expectativa-en-el-mundo/&prev=search
Scroll to the botom and click on the link, but here's the transcript for the lazy!
By Monica Belling Lithium prospect would be among the largest in the world
Plateau Uranium, the Canadian junior looking for lithium and uranium in Peru, with its Macusani project in the Puno region, has discovered in the area known as Falchani, a high-grade lithium footprint, contained in uranium rocks, and more than 100 meters thick. The news is impact because lithium will be the leading mineral of the future. In this regard, ProActivo interviewed Ted O'Connor, CEO of that company, as well as Laurence Stefan, its president, and Ulises Solis, manager in Peru, within the framework of PDAC 2018, in Toronto, Canada.
What are your expectations in the uranium and lithium project in Peru?
Ted O'Connor: We studied it since 2005 with a smaller project in the same area, with the Chemical company in a joint venture and we worked on those projects together to create Plateau Uranium where Laurence and I are partners, before we were competition . I started in 2005 and Laurence in 2004 in this project.
Laurence Stefan: We have the expectation of turning it into an outstanding project in South America. We have the largest resources in the South American continent, about 124 million pounds of uranium in 7 projects; and about 176,000 tons of lithium oxide.
In addition, since November 2017, we have found other types of lithic rock tuffs, volcanic siderites, very rich and with an average content of 0.75% lithium oxide. We have three machines that explore the area on four platforms and find large lithium resources, a 2 × 1 kilometer shadow with a thickness of 100 meters and a content of 0.75% lithium oxide.
Is it presumed that it is the same body that reaches even Bolivia?
Laurence Stefan: In Bolivia they are salares, a lake loaded with supra saturation and where you can extract lithium, sodium and potassium. They also have Chile and Argentina. Chile has the resources, reserves and the largest production of lithium in the world. There SQM operates.
In Peru, in Macusani, there are rhyolites that are the rocks where lithium exists inside the uranium. This is in the Falchani area of the Macusani project. There we find hard rocks, not salares, although there is an underground relationship between them because where there are rhyolites, there are salt flats at deep levels of the earth's crust.
Is the recovery mode of this type of mineral more profitable?
Ted O'Connor: Our deposits are unique, they are in a new type of rock, from which it is easier to extract the lithium than in any other. We have produced solutions as good or better than the salt flats.
Laurence Stefan: The law is much higher. The law of a rich salt is more or less than 500 ppm (parts per million), and the content of Falchani, its tuff is six to seven times higher, between 3,500 to 4,000 ppm. The difference is that in the salar, with solution you can extract more simple; and ours is a rock, where first you have to move the lithium from the solid part, and then extract it.
When we dissolve the rock in sulfuric acid solution we reach contents of between 2,500 ppm or 2,700 ppm, a recovery of 80%. In the liquid we have a content between five and six times higher than the supra saturated salt. So we are going to produce lithium but cheaper than the salt, at the same level.
People say that the salt mines are not mining, but a job of plumber because everything is pumps and pipes. In the salt, if it is pumped very fast without giving time for the solution to cross the rocks, water is pumped, but without lithium.
How many meters of drilling do you have?
Laurence Stefan: As regards the uranium project, we have made several (meters) for the last 10 years. We put together several companies that we consolidated because before there were six companies, then five, four, three, the last two - they were Vena Resources with Chemical behind - where it becomes Macusani.
Among all the companies mentioned I think we execute about 200 kilometers. It is a very large project for uranium resources and we have 176 thousand tons of lithium.
Since we discovered Falchani, we drilled some 3,000 meters and will publish that information in the second quarter of the year. We start with one machine, then the second, and the third because the project is very large and interesting, so we hope to drill some 10,000 meters and resources for around 500 million tons. It will be one of the largest mining projects in Peru.
Under those projections, what amount of investment do they require?
Ted O'Connor: Probably, we have to have an expense of US $ 3 million to get our resources and understand how to extract and produce lithium in the best way. To make a feasibility study would be another US $ 12 million. That is US $ 15 million in the next year and a half to reach the decision of whether we will build the mine or not.
Laurence Stefan: So far all the companies together have invested at least US $ 50 million in the uranium share; in lithium there are still no precise figures. At the moment we spend more than $ 50 million to define these uranium resources in preliminary economic studies.
Our interest has moved in lithium, it is not bad with uranium only that prices are low.
We spend something of $ 1.5 million and to enter the feasibility phase and I think we are going to spend another 15 million.
When do you plan to have all the studies?
Ted O'Connor: At the end of 2019 we would like to have the feasibility study ready and it will say if we are going to complete and build this project.
How much demand is there for lithium?
Laurence Stefan: It is huge and in various turns for the manufacture of electric vehicles, which are the future. The demand for lithium is almost double that of the supply; that is why prices have gone up - from 3,000 or 4,000 dollars per ton to almost 16,000 - and although they have dropped to 13,000, they are still very high. It has tripled in the last 3 years.
Lithium is the metal of the future, and I do not think there is the speed to discover so many deposits and meet the demand.
How many lithium producers exist in the world?
Ted O'Connor: I do not know, but the SQM has the most deposits. There are about ten producers in the world and they are all great, there are many projects that are trying to develop and we seek to be the biggest and the best.
Laurence Stefan: It is said that lithium prices have gone down because they say that Chile is going to produce more. I do not believe that, because the Chilean government is not very friendly and we hope that the Peruvian government will treat the mining companies better. But something must happen, because otherwise there will not be enough lithium in the next 10 years.
It is necessary to at least double the number of large mines, and Falchani would be one of the largest in the future, the other projects are small and very expensive to enter into exploitation.
According to the studies you have, production costs are low?
Laurence Stefan: I think we're going to be one of the lowest (in costs) in the world, and I hope that studies will show that.
How do they handle the social issue?
Ulises Solis: Relationships are great and we go forward; We already worked for 11 years in the project that involves 9 communities (Isivilla, Tantamaco, Chacaconiza, Quelcaya, Chimboya, Corani, Aymaa, Pacaje) with which we have social peace, very good relations and the permission of all, including the last two we were missing that they are from the Chacaconiza area, where Falchani's find is, and Quelcaya.
Each community has between 180 and 312 registered community members; the biggest is Corani. To make a census in the area is complicated, since many of its inhabitants are outside and sometimes there are no people in the community although they are for their assemblies.
What to do in the community issue so that the projects flow?
Ulises Sols: Tell the truth to the community, work and participate in the business with them, without surprising them. Let them know from the beginning that they have to leave the area and they know it. We already bought them land outside the communities.
Ted O'Connor: In my experience with communities around the world, whether in remote areas of Canada, the US, or in Australia, there are always local populations with whom you have to make agreements. I come from a large company, where CSR was key and with that same form we work here and insist on it. Without the support of the community, the project does not walk and therefore we are fortunate to have good working relationships, they are not perfect but they are good.
Regarding social investments, how do you channel them?
Ulises Sols: We have community work through a group of social workers and we collaborate in education and health. Now they ask us for transportation, and we are doing well.
On public infrastructure, have you talked with the government about road projects?
Laurence Stefan: The infrastructure to develop the mine is good. We have the Interoceanic that allows us to transport the materials to build the mine and to transport the final product. In energy we have San Gabn, which is the largest hydroelectric plant in Peru, and (enough) water for processing.
Ulises Sols: This indicates that we will not have problems of water resources, and we also work at high altitudes, where there are no crops.
I must point out that the communities there do not live off the crops, except for the native potato that grows as a result of the rain; and there are no irrigation, livestock is only alpaca. We drilled over 5,000 meters high and the communities of Tantamaco, Isivilla, Chacaconiza, Quelcaya are above 4,300 meters high.
Chacaconiza is only alpaquera; Isivilla and Tantamaco, if they plant native potatoes, they make their mitas and they are watered by the rain, but there is nothing else.
Are uranium mines so attractive in prices, such as lithium mines?
Ulises Solis: Uranium has to recover, and it certainly will because it is clean energy.
Laurence Stefan: The resources we have discovered are very large; those of uranium were analyzed by the Geological Survey of Peru before Ingemmet in the 1980s, and IPEN has had half a million pounds of uranium. Now we have 124 million, we multiply resources 250 times. In the world of nuclear energy they are going to need that uranium.
What are the largest producers of uranium?
Laurence Stefan: Although Kazakhstan (of the former Soviet Union), is the largest producer in the world, the chemical firm (Ricca Chemical Company), which is the largest producer of uranium in Canada, a country where the law is very high -between 20% and 30% of uranium- and its management is dangerous, that's why there is mining of tunnels, with robots.
Ted O'Connor: In Canada, the uranium mines are in Saskatchewan.
However, in Macusani, the uranium is one of the cleanest in the world. It is not dangerous at all.
Ulises Sols: Something that should be known is that in the community where we operate, people do not get sick with cancer, something that does happen in Lima. And they coexist with radioactivity. In your houses you pass the centilometer through the walls and mark radioactivity, the uranium is on the surface.
DATA:
- On March 15, 2018, Plateau Uranium Inc. announced that it changed its name to "Plateau Energy Metals Inc". a Canadian company for the exploration and development of lithium and uranium.
- It controls all the uranium resources known in Peru, important and growing resources of lithium and mineral concessions that cover more than 91,000 hectares (910 km2) located near a significant infrastructure in their properties in the Macusani plateau.
- Plateau Energy Metals is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol 'PLU', quoted in OTCQB under the symbol "PLUUF" and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol 'QG1'. The Company has 65,088,457 issued and outstanding shares.