RE:RE:RE:Press conferenceSounds very very bullish.... how come no mention of the dreaded peruvian paintings...
Cheers,
juanPeru wrote:
I've just realized the editor deleted all letters with tilde (used in Spanish), so here is the transcript without tildes:
Dr. Ulises Solis
General Manager of Macusani Yellowcake
We have been since 2006 in the area of Macusani exploring for uranium . Since 2006 that we called ourselves Global Gold, today Macusani Yellowcake, we have changed only the name; the RUC, the representatives, the address, is the same, and we changed our name because Global Gold had nothing to do with uranium, right? Global Gold, the company was more of gold. But, ok, today we are Macusani Yellowcake.
Since 2006, as I repeat, we have been drilling and little by little we have been consolidating the entire Macusani area; In this area there were 7 or 8 foreign mining companies, among Americans, Canadians and Australians, so much so that they were Vena, Vena Resources, Conminergia, Solex with Exploraciones Macusani, Contact Uranium of Australia, which acquired practically the properties that IPEN left (Instituto Peruano de Energia Nuclear), the Quijitian projects, Corachapi. Well, something we should have done well in all this time because we have consolidated the whole area through merger of companies, because they were all shareholders, investors, via fusion or via acquisition of mining properties. Well, we have the management, the operation of the whole Macusani dish, except for an area that belongs to Fission, which is an American company and that in Peru responds to the name of Peruland, which has 2,400 hectares in the Corani area. But they are not working, they had a small stage of exploration, I think they did not do well, we believe that they did not do well and they are stranded at the time.
Returning to the topic, we made our first calculation of resources in December 2016, where we had 124 million pounds of uranium equivalents as resources and 175,000 tons of lithium carbonate, as well as resources. This was presented at the PIDAC in March of 2017 in Canada and, tests to the singing as it is said, were the engineer Oshiro and the engineer Bernuy in our exhibition and they were surprised of the finding of lithium, but as we say we were a company of uranium.
We have knocked on the door of several communities because we in the area of influence have 9 peasant communities and there was a community that did not allow us to enter, which was the community of Chacaconiza. For the last semester of 2017 we signed an agreement with the community of Chacaconiza and we entered their drilling areas. We find higher uranium values but the minimum volume. Osea our resources in uranium increased very little, but great was our surprise to see the results of laboratory analyzes ICP mass, where we started to find lithium, lithic liters with high content of purity, bone, high grades. We have not reached 5,000 ppm, I believe that a sample reached 5,000 ppm, but all are above 3,000 at a certain depth. We have found a body of lithic tuffs, which has opened the eyes to the world. The engineers that know know what I'm talking about and how crazy because it was practically the last quarter of 2017 and we have continued and continue to date. We have drilled only a part and the resources in lithium have skyrocketed. We must officially submit the resources the last week of August. We must expose them to the world lithium resources, but we to date with which we have already drilled estimate that they greatly exceed the 2.2 million lithium carbonate equivalent, as resources in the area. We must officially submit the resources the last week of August. We must expose them to the world lithium resources, but we to date with which we have already drilled estimate that they greatly exceed the 2.2 million lithium carbonate equivalent, as resources in the area. We must officially submit the resources the last week of August. We must expose them to the world lithium resources, but we to date with which we have already drilled estimate that they greatly exceed the 2.2 million lithium carbonate equivalent, as resources in the area.
Last week I had the good fortune to visit together with Dr. Laurence Santiago. There was the Latam Summit and I listened to the exhibitions of the lithium mining companies of Chile and I told them that they only spoke about lithium in Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. Peru? They did not talk, they did not talk and they did not talk. And I want to tell you, I am a lawyer by profession, I am not an engineer, but I can tell you with my heart in my hand, that when Dr. Laurence spoke and explained, and Dr. Miguel Inchaustegui was a witness, he was present and that he is Vice Minister of Mines to date, knowing that Peru can become the largest lithium deposit in the world, everyone was stunned. But not only that, but it is the highest purity lithium, because we are not salty, we are not going to extract lithium from salt mines.
Regarding the communities, tell them that we are in the area of influence of 9 peasant communities. It is not easy social work in the area, there are many needs. I always criticize the State that every year we have the same news. It seems that we heard the same news every year, the subject of frost. The theme of poverty, the theme of children. They have taken a child in ojotas, without socks, on the Facebook that has run around the world. This happens every year and we live with them. Our geologists, our engineers, drill over 5 thousand meters. There are days that we can not drill all morning to thaw the ice or the ice that has been done all night because the trucks can not reach the drilling points. The cold is for everyone and our main objective has been to work with the communities. We do a participatory work with the communities where we give work to all the comuneros, but we can not give them jobs at the same time, the work is rotating.
So we participate with them, they work with us, we lead a life together, we live with them, we live with them, and there we are, we give them the struggle as they say, with the communities, and the great concern we have at this moment and that thanks to heaven the engineer Susana Vilca is here, who was one of the first promoters to issue a rule that allows the exploitation of radioactive minerals in the country, which we do not have. The question of one of you is going to be, and how are you going to explode? Oh, I do not know, I have the General Mining Law. As my grandmother used to say, the load is fixed on the way. We'll see what happens. But I remember so much Mrs. Susana Vilca presented a bill, you already know how the congressmen are, as are the authorities, they only attend when the problem is present, when the potato is hot. There is no regulation that allows the exploitation of radioactive minerals. Well, but you also understand why, modesty aside, who knows about uranium or who knows about lithium in the country? There is no mine in the country, nor in South America. Mine as mine, not as salt. Of uranium, less. So we are in the struggle, we are visiting Congress, we have been on this issue since 2007, Mrs. Susana, trying to get the rule issued but this last government has changed so many ministers that one goes, knocks on the door of the Minister of Energy and Mines and The next day someone else attends, I mean you can not walk anymore. We hope that the engineer Ismodes now lasts a good time because investors come from Canada, they already meet a week and they changed the minister, This way we cant work. But, ok, we have to learn to live with the things we have, which is what we have. Sirs, I want to not tire you, not bore you, and introduce Dr. Laurence Stefam.
Dr. Laurence Stefan
COO of Plateau Energy
What do you think of this white powder, of very high purity, very high purity, crystallized lithium and made in Peru 100%? I see faces that are not happy, others that I do not know. I'm sure everyone is wrong, if they're thinking what I think they think. It is very high purity lithium carbonate, 99.74%. It is pure. For example, in the international world lithium is sold in the world as lithium carbonate almost 85-90% and the other 10% as lithium hydroxide, because that is the most alkaline, lightest metal in the world. It is very difficult to have it in a natural, native way, it does not exist, that is why it is always kept under fat, volcanic fats, minerals, it does not matter, because from the moment it enters into action with oxygen it is transformed into lithium oxide and burns , like nothing. To sell lithium carbonate you need a purity, It depends a lot on the technical specifications, more than 99.5%. This is a very complicated refining process, very expensive and very hard, hard in the sense that there are many procedures. We have reached 99.74% purity without refining. I hope you understand me, without refining. In this case the part of the processing that was more expensive, getting from an intermediate or dirty product to produce a lithium carbonate that can be sold without fines, without penalties, that may not go to China that has become the biggest refiner of the world and makes a lot of money like that, exploiting the Chileans, the Argentines because their product is very dirty. We have produced it here, this mineral, this white powder well crystallized and of very high purity, 100% made in Peru, without refining. It's something, I think it's a miracle. Good, and I hope that we will continue living the miracle for the next 100 years with you, and you will understand why 100 years. If 100 years is not enough, I think 120.
Okay. Located in Macusani. Macusani is the area almost 200 km north of Lake Titicaca, very close to the border with Bolivia and Brazil. Before going into details, I want to say one thing. First it is the legal disclaimer in case everything I have said before can cause me harm. In this case, no, this comparison with the dust, please, you should read it very well that we will not have problems, and I have the lawyer on my right, in case we have problems (laughs from the public). Ok, I can say, I want you to listen to me for 2-3 minutes, it does not have anything technical, but you must understand that Macusani, because I heard here in the hall that there are people who think there is no lithium in Peru. I do not want to prove anything, only the facts and the data as they are. But Macusani is the result of a war, of two (and we will give more words on this matter) very tragic accidents and after a test of corruption that unfortunately has had very serious effects here in the country. But all those four facts at the end have given us the possibility to discover Macusani, the potential of lithium and uranium of the country.
The first event is the Falklands war. You here in South America call them the Falkland Islands. It is not important for me to know what a general in charge of a military junta thinks in the 70's or 80's, if he wants to invade that territory, if he is English or is Argentine. I'm not a historian. But I believe that the inhabitants of an island can decide if this island can be considered British or Argentine. Argentines have thought that because it is very close to them, other things can be done. The war of the Falklands began in the 80's, we know how it ended. It has been 36 years, it has left very hard wounds here on the continent. Some countries supported, for reasons of history. We talked about other times, eh, in the 80's the world was a little different, military juntas, terrorism, something else. And to think that we always say that the world is bad, that we have lived better times. But as a result of this war, in which some countries, like Chile, have supported the British, and others like you in Peru that supported the Argentines, for reasons of history, of neighbors, of who I am, the services Britons of geology have flown all over Peru, part of Bolivia and the northern part of Chile. Why? We are in the early 80's. In the cold war (the Cold War) the world was divided between communism and capitalism more than anything else, and the British were interested in seeing where they could get more uranium. And in Peru, which was one of the few countries in the world without any knowledge of radioactive minerals, they overflew all this and Macusani has been the result of flying with radiometric instruments. Why? Because the uranium in Macusani is on the surface. On the surface there are yellow fields. Because Macusani, it is very interesting and we are going to talk about it a little later, it has only secondary and tertiary uranium minerals. There is no primary mineral, as the geologists knew it. In this case, we did not know what was there before, but now we know. We have a PhD, several masters, and we understand the geology, at least the uranium, of what happened there. And why is it so important? Because it is a product of water. The minerals of Macusani are products of water precipitation, born of water and very simple also to re-precipitate them to produce uranium as a natural product.
But then came the second strong event, called Chernobyl. You remember, in 1986, in April, the largest nuclear power plant part of the Soviet Union, today Ukraine, as a result of human error had a strong explosion, many people died there. It is an ecological disaster and it will be for many hundreds of thousands of years in the area. But this put the cross on modern uranium explorations. Because nobody was interested, it was something dead, and the price of uranium under something of $ 30 or $ 40 and remained until 2004-2005 at less than $ 6 per pound. It was a total impediment to the uranium exploration, nobody was interested in uranium. Then, as usual, IPEN stopped the work and left everything behind. Nothing happened for more than 20 years. In 2004 the prices of uranium began to rise, rise, rise. They left these minimums of $ 6, and when they entered $ 10 we understood that something was happening in the world, that the world wanted uranium again. We enter, we explore, not only us but several companies. As Dr. Solis explained, Australian capitals, Canadians, Americans, South Africans, of all. And little by little we find uranium.
As a result of that, everything worked very well until March 2011, when the third event occurred, which is the tragic accident in Fukushima-Daiichi. The largest nuclear power plant in Japan disappeared. The uranium before Fukushima-Daiichi went up to $ 135 per pound, something exceptional. Peru could export billions of dollars per month, right ?, for this uranium. The prices went down. They have gone down to $ 14, now we are at $ 22- $ 23. But we have seen a new resurgence in the world of uranium. I think the uranium will recover little by little and we will reach other levels.
And the fourth important event, I think this could be unpleasant but not so much, it has been this, as you say, the interoceanic (road). The interoceanic know very well that it is the product of Odebrecht and Grana y Montero, but I prefer not to go into details. Regarding whether this cost $ 250 million as was the initial budget or the more than 2,000 million that we know now as a result of everything that happened, I prefer not to comment. But as a result of this act of corruption so deep they have built one of the best roads in these conditions, making from Macusani we can transport any type of heavy machinery. We can enter the area, the interoceanic cuts our concessions, there is water on all sides and there is a lot of energy because San Gaban (hydroelectric power station) is very close to us,
In this case you understand, without all these events Macusani would be nothing. It is the result of a war, two tragedies and an act of corruption that has built the largest engineering group in South America, Odebrecht, and unfortunately one of the best construction companies of you, Grana and Montero. But what can I say, we are happy. I hope you do not think we are exploiters. Only for you to understand that history always plays a very important role in everything that happens in the world. And Macusani, with uranium and most of all with lithium, because I know you have to think that there is no lithium in Macusani. We are going to show that there is a lot.
Ok, what is red is interoceanic. Thank you very much, it was a very long story, I hope you understand much better. We are 200 km north of Lake Titicaca. There is a rhyolite platform. Rhyolites are volcanic rocks, the most acidic there is. More than 70% there is quartz, which is useless. But since this dish of rhyolite is something that we have not found yet, I do not think it exists in another part of the world. It is possible that after this geological model we can find something similar in Argentina, in Nevada, but we will see, at least so far everything is in Peru. At the end of the eruptions of this volcano, which we can call volcano Macusani (we had never seen a volcano like this) all these elements, one of the heaviest (uranium) and one of the lightest (lithium) were concentrated together. All the chemical elements of the Mendeleev chemical table that did not accumulate to produce minerals were thus accumulated, fractionally, and together are uranium, lithium, fluorine, chlorine, cesium, rubidium. For example, we now know that this area of Falchani, we are going to talk about this, has the largest cesium and rubidium deposit in the world. But we hardly talk about this because there are so many new things that we prefer to share them little by little.
In the cartographic map the yellow are all the concessions that we have. The colors on the right side are the resources of uranium, more than 124 million pounds as previously said Dr. Solis. And you see a red arrow? Falchani discovery. This is the Falchani area where we have not found uranium. The top projects in these various colors are seven deposits where we have 124 million pounds of yellowcake uranium oxide. And part of this, if we are going to exploit these uranium resources, as a result of the exploitation of this mineral, there are resources of 176 thousand tons of lithium oxide, but only if we exploit the uranium in this area. IPEN has done a fantastic job. But, for example, they have discovered resources of more or less than half a million pounds. With all the investments that the other companies have made, we have multiplied the resources 250 times more. This is not a percentage, in percentage it is 25 thousand percent more than what IPEN had in the 80's before the Chernobyl accident. I can say one thing, I believe that uranium resources in the area can double, triple or with a little luck quadruple. Macusani would be one of the largest uranium deposits in the world.
Now, we have always been aware that there are lithium inside the uranium deposits. And for time, and because we were a uranium company, and because lithium, I speak of 10 years earlier, people were not so interested in lithium. Let's see, can you tell me if anyone of you spoke about lithium four years ago, it's going to be a joke, of course not. But our intention was to separate them as a result of the same metallurgical process, to have a flow of lithium and a flow of uranium to have a uranium product without contamination with lithium but more importantly a lithium product without uranium contamination. This was our first objective. And we have arrived at that. But as uranium prices have only gone in one direction, to the south, falling from $ 25, $ 22, $ 18, $ 14, it was very difficult to raise funds, we are a junior. In this case we have made a lot of geochemical strokes on the plate and we have seen that in the western part all the geochemical indicators showed us that there is more lithium. And in September of 2017, as a result of the work of Dr. Solis with his legal team, we have been given permission to enter to explore in this area. We have started to drill, we have found lithium, about 45 meters. But then at a depth of 80 meters, and now we know that it comes out on all sides, we have found a unit of 80 meters, a tuff so different, we have never seen anything like this. What is that? We are wondering. A tufa, we have not seen it. And then the results of the laboratory have begun to come. And the lab results were all between 3,000 (ppm) and 4,000. I think the highest content is 4,500 or something like that, with an average more or less than 3,700 ppm of lithium. From 3,500 to 3,700 ppm of lithium means about 0.8% lithium, almost 18 kg or 1.8% lithium carbonate equivalent in this unit.
This is how it appears in a section. The first drills in the third platform, as you see, none has gone down. This pink level, here, these are the Falchani tuffs. For example, it has something more than 1 km, I have a little exaggerated. This has up to 120 m, the deepest. This was the first platform. And you're going to ask me, why have not you gone deep? Because we did not know what we had found. We were looking for uranium and we have seen a very interesting white rock. We knew there was lithium. Because I want to say one thing. In all this platform of Macusani that measures more or less than 80 km from east to west and 40 km from north to south, there is much more lithium in these rocks with a content more or less than 500 ppm of lithium, more than in the salares from Argentina, Chile and Bolivia together. While the lithium contents of the salt flats, the richest, they are 500-600 ppm in Chile and the lowest 100-200 ppm, we have an average that never goes below 350 ppm. And in exceptional areas such as Falchani, where it is transformed into a tuff, up to 4,500 ppm or 18 kg of lithium carbonate equivalent.
I do not know if the colors look good, but for example the red platforms are the areas where we have drilled. The yellow dots on the left now know that they are lithium outcrops. We had not seen it. And not only us. IPEN had not seen it. INGEMMET (Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Institute) had not seen it. Why? I prefer not to comment. But it is like this. Some have more luck than others. And the most interesting part is that these points, I do not know if you can see from this distance, they are all 3,000-4,000 ppm. Because this is not the sample number, it is the lithium content on the surface. In this case, what is very important to say about these tuffs of Falchani, which are volcanic tuffs, is the homogeneity of the lithium content. You have 80 meters, or the thickest (thickness) of 120 meters and the content never drops below 3,000 ppm.
We are in the process of evaluating resources. The highest laws are the hot colors, and in the upper and lower zone, this is very interesting, we have talked about cesium and rubidium. It's like a sandwich. Inside there is lithium, 80 meters of lithium, and in the upper parts at the bottom there are very high contents of cesium and rubidium. I think Macusani has the second highest cesium content in the world and in rubidium terms the volumetric calculations are impressive. There is more rubidium in Macusani than in all the other deposits in the world.
These are the types of resources, inferred. This is a horizontal section that allows us to see that the calculations are more or less 1.3 km from north to south and 400 meters from east to west. But this is the most interesting part. The area in red is the area where we have outcrops or where we know that there are tuffs. The yellow zone is the area that we have drilled up to now. I do not want to go into details, I can not do it because we have a listing not only in Toronto Dr. Solis but also in France, who are winners of the World Cup (laughs), in Germany and in the United States, because we are going to need a lot of funds to develop everything. But you can see that we have worked only in about 20% or 25% of the areas with lithium outcrops. It can not give you data, but I can say one thing. If they are 2, 3, 4 or 5 million these are just as it is said in English Maiden Resources, the first calculation of resources. But I can say one thing. This first phase is going to be published soon, in a couple of weeks. These are the non-brine deposits, not salares, rocks. The biggest is Bacanora in Mexico. The second is Lithium Americas in Nevada. I believe that we are going to have resources to be the fifth or the sixth largest in the world. For now. The first calculation of resources. Please do not forget that what we have found has been in October and we have published the first data in November. In less than seven months we have found the fifth largest lithium deposit, but this is only the first step. Because I'm sure that in two more years of drilling Macusani would be bigger than Bacanora. I have no doubt,
This is the most important part. We have lithium, we know that it exists, it can be processed. Let's go back to this first slide, which you've already seen, to this white powder. But we have already arrived and we have used the services of several Peruvian technicians, they have supported us a lot. Because, I can not say it twice more, but in Peru there are not many people who know about uranium and lithium. Peru is known in the world for its precious metals, its polymetallics, tin, a little oil, now it has gas, right? But uranium and lithium are totally different things. This ANSTO is Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization. Why have we used them? We have done all the work in Peru, but they are more professional. Not in the sense that Peru does not have professionals, but they know many more lithium than others. Why? Australia is the largest lithium rock producer in the world. They produce more lithium than Argentina and Chile, but it comes from spodumene and chlorite, which are other lithium minerals.
All this flow that you see here is a normal flow that consists of first the leaching, neutralization, the first phase of crystallization, it is purified, we must evaporate it, then we must remove all the impurities, the last step is refinement, and as we have said we have arrived (I've put it that way, in red) at 99.74% purity of lithium carbonate without refining. It's something amazing.
Well, I do not want to talk much about lithium, whether it's necessary or not. You know better than me, well, the issue is that we are going to use, we have the engines with oil and with diesel, the Otto engine, which has served us a lot in the development of humanity for more than 130 years. Now let's think that, in fact countries in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia and other countries are the richest countries in the world. If now the future is electric vehicles, and lithium is not only important for electric vehicles, but most of all for the storage of energy. The issue is that we know how to produce energy, we know how to transport it, we know how to use it, but nobody knows how to store it. Lithium is used a lot for electric vehicles. Tesla produces more or less 5 (?) Vehicles per year. That's why all the big companies now, VMW, Mercedes, Toyota, are interested in this. We have talked in Germany with Volkswagen, who are very interested in having lithium. Let's see what happens with that. But most important are these large lithium batteries that will store energy. Because at this moment we only produce and use it at the same time. Large lithium batteries will allow us to store energy. Let this be the future, where we are going, I do not know. But I am very happy that Peru is part of this process. Large lithium batteries will allow us to store energy. Let this be the future, where we are going, I do not know. But I am very happy that Peru is part of this process. Large lithium batteries will allow us to store energy. Let this be the future, where we are going, I do not know. But I am very happy that Peru is part of this process.
We can talk a little bit about uranium. We have a project that, as I have already said, is currently the fifth largest uranium in the world. At a price of $ 50 per pound of uranium we can produce more or less 5.6, almost 6, in the first years 6 million pounds per year for a minimum of 10 years, but I think with more than 20 security. The most interesting part is not resources but the cost of producing. Because, as we have said, since uranium (in Macusani) is a product of water precipitation, it is very simple to process it, produce a product of pure uranium, a yellowcake (yellow cake) of very high purity at $ 17 per pound, which is not the lower but it is the second lowest in the world. As you can see, comparable projects only have Urano One who is in Kazakhstan; we can not compete with them because everything there is rich recovery (?) and this is something else, and also the Russians at the time of communism built all the infrastructure for Kazakhstan. Russia does not have uranium resources, very little, they have a little in Siberia. More than everything comes from Kazakhstan. Now Kazakhstan is an independent country, the Russians very intelligently have private companies working in Kazakhstan. Very good for them, but it was theirs and they have developed everything. We can not compete with them because everything has been developed by the State, they produce less than $ 10 per pound, but you will produce $ 17 which is a little cheaper than Cameco, which is the largest producer of uranium in the world. Russia does not have uranium resources, very little, they have a little in Siberia. More than everything comes from Kazakhstan. Now Kazakhstan is an independent country, the Russians very intelligently have private companies working in Kazakhstan. Very good for them, but it was theirs and they have developed everything. We can not compete with them because everything has been developed by the State, they produce less than $ 10 per pound, but you will produce $ 17 which is a little cheaper than Cameco, which is the largest producer of uranium in the world. Russia does not have uranium resources, very little, they have a little in Siberia. More than everything comes from Kazakhstan. Now Kazakhstan is an independent country, the Russians very intelligently have private companies working in Kazakhstan. Very good for them, but it was theirs and they have developed everything. We can not compete with them because everything has been developed by the State, they produce less than $ 10 per pound, but you will produce $ 17 which is a little cheaper than Cameco, which is the largest producer of uranium in the world.
The same for uranium, if you think that clean energy is going to be needed, we will need uranium. If you think we are going to continue burning coal and gas and other things, I prefer not to go into that because here I like to believe that the people in this room are because they think we need a cleaner world, where we should not burn. For example you have all this nice gas from Camisea, we have built power plants, we burn the gas, I am sure we can give you more intelligent uses to develop a petrochemical industry, not just burn it to produce energy.
When this company was just a uranium project our intention was that in 2018 we started the feasibility study and went into production after 2020. The thing has changed a bit because this lithium has changed everything, and most of all because the price of uranium we want it to grow. I prefer to increase a little more uranium resources, duplicate it for example, and wait to go into production (specifically speaking of uranium) when the price of uranium is a little above $ 25 or $ 30 per pound. But lithium is another thing. Lithium is another thing. Lithium is sold these days between $ 12,000 and $ 20,000 per ton of lithium carbonate, it depends a lot on the purity. We have done our calculations for only $ 8,000 and I think that just because we have Falchani we can produce lithium for many, many years.
A little about the corporate part, but this you can see also on the web site. The interoceanica you can see, it is one of the best roads you have here in the country, thanks to our Odebrecht brothers, many thanks to the Brazilians. And we have talked about uranium to see what it is like, as they see it yellow, it's like it appears in the field. And in the end this is, this product, this white powder of high purity, very fine, crystallized, is lithium carbonate, and I hope that you have one of the largest lithium deposits in the world, which will allow Peru to be part of this club that at the moment is a bit esoteric, right? I do not think we're going to move Saudi Arabia to Peru, but I think we're going to move closer to them. Thank you so much for everything.