KNOC and POSCO Holdings plan to begin by conducting economic evaluations, including assessing the feasibility of extracting minerals such as lithium from reservoirs in the region’s oil and gas fields, while also collaborating on technological research to extract minerals.

Four projects that will put Salta at the pinnacle of lithium have begun.
hashtag#bolivia, hashtag#chile, hashtag#argentina, by @oscarvargasvillazon, 17 April 2024.

This year 2024, three large industrial lithium plants and one with a smaller capacity will be commissioned.

1.-The Salar Centenario Ratones project will start producing from June. It is run by the French company Eramet and the Chinese group Tsingshan, has a budget of US$400 million in addition to the US$200 million already invested initially, the plant will have an estimated annual production capacity of 24,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE).

The Mariana project, run by the Chinese company Ganfeng Lithium, is located in the Salar de Llullaillaco, 95 kilometers from Tolar Grande. The investment in the project is around US$600 million. It will produce 20,000 tons of lithium carbonate per year.

Also, in 2022, they began the construction of an industrial plant in General Güemes to complete the production of lithium chloride. The plan includes building its own railway station for the transport of the first lithium product from Llullaillaco to the plant.

The South Korean company Posco is in charge of the third major lithium project being developed in Salta: Sal de Oro. The deposit is located in the Salar del Hombre Muerto, in the shared sector between Salta and Catamarca and will advance to its operational phase between the end of this year and the beginning of 2025.

With an investment of around US$1.6 billion, the South Korean company is building a commercial lithium phosphate plant in the salt flat and another to process lithium hydroxide in the General Güemes industrial park, with a production capacity of 25,000 tons of this product per year.

The mining company Rio Tinto announced that by the end of this year a lithium carbonate plant that it is building in the Rincón salt flat will be up and running. It will have a capacity of 3,000 tons per year. The investment in the work is US$350 million, which is in addition to the US$825 million that the company invested to acquire the project in 2022.

Other early-stage projects:
The Puna Mining project in the Salar del Rincón of Argosy Minerals in Australia is building a pilot plant to manufacture lithium carbonate that is already 90% complete and by the end of the year will start producing with a capacity of 2,000 tons of lithium carbonate per year.

Lithium X Energy acquired the rights to the Sal de los Angeles deposit.

The Pozuelos PPG project, Pluspetrol announced a US$962 million sale agreement to the Chinese company Ganfeng Lithium.

The National Mining Secretariat updated the portfolio of lithium projects in which Salta has a preponderance with 17 deposits out of the 38 surveyed in total.

DRILLING AT TABBA TABBA FINDS HIGH POTENTIAL PEGMATITES
? Maiden drilling identifies high potential lithium, caesium, tantalum (LCT) type pegmatites at
Sayona’s 100% owned Tabba Tabba Lithium Project, Western Australia
? Ground gravity surveying has commenced, including over the southern extensions to the
Tabba Tabba tantalum mine and at the Roadside Prospect to focus future deep drilling
? Deep drilling targets along the 7.5km strike length Tabba Tabba lithium corridor to be the
focus for 2024 exploration, in potential boost for Sayona’s global lithium base
North American lithium producer Sayona Mining Limited (“Sayona”) (ASX:SYA; OTCQB:SYAXF)
announces that maiden exploration drilling at its wholly owned Tabba Tabba Lithium Project, E45/2364
identified high potential pegmatite systems containing caesium and tantalum. Based on these results,
Sayona plans to conduct deeper drilling along a 7.5km prospective corridor located immediately south
of the historic Tabba Tabba tantalum mine, where recent exploration by Wildcat Resources has identified
encouraging lithium mineralisation.
The 77-hole air core drilling program for 1,473m focused on two key areas, with results in the northern
drill area identifying a zone of alteration, interpreted as the targeted southern extension to the Tabba
Tabba mine stratigraphy. The southern drill area, sited around the Roadside and Turley prospects,
intersected narrow pegmatite within broader zones of elevated tantalum and caesium geochemistry,
typical of a LCT (lithium-caesium-tantalum) type pegmatite system.
An orientation ground gravity geophysical survey has commenced to identify the prospective gabbro –
sediment contact for targeting, as this is an important control for lithium mineralisation within the area.
The gravity survey covers a 7km x 2km area and comprises approximately 2,500 stations arranged on
160m x 40m traverses, infilled to 80x20m over the northern and southern drill areas. The survey is
anticipated to take three weeks to complete.
Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling is planned after the completion of the gravity survey to test existing and
new gravity defined targets within fresh rock at depth. Some earthworks have been completed in support
of the planned drilling program.
The air core drill results support the ramp up of West Australian exploration activities at Tabba Tabba
and Sayona’s other 100% owned lithium and gold projects in the region.

1️⃣ Refined cobalt
Refined cobalt prices continued to fall in the week ending March 28. Overall, supply was slightly tight and smelters held limited stocks. Peak season underperformed, and inquiries were scarce. Tepid demand recovery and the fact that smelters remain profitable suggest a bearish price outlook.

2️⃣ Cobalt intermediate product
Cobalt intermediate product prices inched lower in the week ending March 28. The amount of cheap goods available was limited in a highly concentrated spot market. With limited recovery of end-user demand, market players in the entire industry chain were wary of restocking at the current high prices. Firm pricing met with pushback from buyers. Potential sell-offs by some cash-strapped traders mean spot prices could still drop.

3️⃣ Cobalt salt (cobalt sulphate and cobalt chloride)
Cobalt salt prices have slightly decreased in the week ending March 28, with stable production despite high raw material costs leading to negative profit margins. Precursor producers are postponing restocking, waiting for confirmed orders, while Co3O4 experienced some restocking due to existing orders. The market shows a willingness from smelters to lower prices and traders to sell stock, leading to reduced transaction prices. Future cobalt salt prices may drop further if weak demand persists and intermediate product costs decrease.

4️⃣ Cobalt salt (Co3O4)
Co3O4 prices were stable in the week ending March 28. Smelters maintained stable operating rates to deliver orders. Downstream LCO makers barely placed new orders after stocking up earlier. While previous price hike did not deter downstream buyers, short-term transactions might hardly grow since most of the demand has already been met. Co3O4 prices may go down amid bearish sentiment.

5️⃣ Nickel sulphate
Nickel salt prices were stable in the week ending March 28 with better-than-expected operating rate and low finished goods inventories. Wet-process recyclers are operating at about 60%, with supply likely to meet or slightly exceed expectations, though still below January levels. Demand has increased slightly for precursor materials. Supply-demand dynamics have eased, maintaining but weakening price support. Despite a drop in nickel prices, high-grade nickel matte discount coefficient remain stable, lowering overall costs and indicating positive raw material profitability. Short-term prices are expected to remain stable, with potential to follow nickel's downward trend in the future.

Please do not hesitate to contact Jean Tang at jeantang if you have any question or inquiry.

hashtag#cobalt

Pilbara Minerals Limited's today's auction price is ~US$150 higher than today's SMM average Australia Li2O 5.5-6% price. This implies a room for a higher lithium price

Pilbara today's auction price - US$1,106/dmt on a SC5.5 CIF China. This offer equates to an approximate price of US$1,200/dmt on a SC6.0 CIF China

Dave Snydacker has just resigned. The founder and CEO of Lilac Solutions.
hashtag#chile, hashtag#argentina, hashtag#bolivia, hashtag#oscarvargasvillazon, February 25, 2024.
Raef Sully is the new boss. Lilac Solutions is developing a Direct Lithium Extraction technology, a method of extracting lithium from brines that has received a lot of publicity and but never worked on an industrial scale, has never been produced on a commercial scale.

Less so in the Kachi project that they currently share with Lake Resources in Argentina.

Dave Snydacker will remain with the honorary position of President of Lilac Solutions.

Raef Sully
Over the past eight years, Lilac has grown from a multinational technology company providing operational and engineering services to some of the world's largest lithium projects.

With Lilac's technology consistently outperforming the competition by a wide margin and proven in the field, and with a strong cash position following our Series C financing, now is an ideal time to appoint a new CEO to lead the next phase of Lilac's growth: signing commercial agreements. Partnerships and commercial-scale plant delivery.

The first time I met Raef Sully, I was interviewing for the position of COO at Lilac and immediately saw his potential to lead the company. That day, as we talked about the opportunities and challenges that lay ahead for Lilac, I naturally mentioned my desire to appoint a new CEO of his caliber in the coming years. Raef brings a warm leadership style with exceptional experience in mining, chemicals, and oil and gas.

This diverse set of experiences aligns with Lilac's ethos of innovation and multidisciplinary execution.

Raef and I shared this news with the Lilac team today and the excitement was palpable. As President and Chief Technology Officer, I will continue to support strategic conversations with Raef, the board of directors, and the executive team, and reassemble our technology and materials manufacturing teams under my direct leadership.

Amazingly, over the past two years, after declaring victory in technology development and successfully completing our first round of field pilots, the pace of innovation at Lilac has accelerated.

I'm excited to take this work to the next level and support Raef to achieve commercial production at scale.

Please join me in welcoming Raef Sully as CEO of the world's leading lithium extraction technology company.

Cheers, David Snydacker

Thus Chile, or at least the governments that decided to eliminate liberalism.
Economic, Globalization, and always go against the entrepreneur.... development and advancements in a potential economy....... You are going to apply for an exploration permit and I assure you that they will delay it longer than necessary or look for any pretext to reject for the sole fact of going against a system of progress and development ....... We have been waiting months for a permit and they always seek to reject it because of a comma or a period ..... but whatever it is to count on going against and no one dares to authorize ..... That's why it's easier to reject ....... plop.... That's where we are today

Lithium triangle: Rubbing the crystal ball.
hashtag#chile, hashtag#argentina, hashtag#bolivia, hashtag#oscarvargasvillazon, February 19, 2024.
How is this year coming in terms of lithium?

On the demand side, the machine continues to heat up, the electrification of the car fleet is irreversible, no one is going to stop anymore and sales of electric vehicles are growing at rates of more than 40% per year, the kind of figures that only disruptive technologies are capable of offering.

In this regard, if in 2010 humanity was satiated with one hundred thousand tons per year of lithium carbonate equivalent, this year 2024 will not be satisfied with less than twelve times that amount, 1.5 thousand tons. By 2030 the prediction is 20 million LCEs.

On the supply side, countries blessed with white gold will continue to respond to market signals by developing new projects proportionately, with two notable exceptions:

Bolivia: Still in the grip of the anachronistic nationalization implemented in 2008 that establishes that lithium carbonate production must be 100% state-owned.

However, this year 2024 the communist model will be abandoned, in order to reach pragmatic agreements: PPPs, public-private agreements with its three partners, CATL, Uranimium One and Citic Guoan Group, with whom for the moment it only has a framework agreement for studies in the pilot and demo phase, which indicates that in 2024, lithium production will continue to be at a pilot plant level, next to nothing.

Chile: President Boric will continue for now
without new initiatives, in a total inertia that caused US$ 6,000 million to escape from Chile to Argentina, during 2023.

At that snail's pace, he will have to be content with the suspicious agreement between CODELCO and SQM, to exploit lithium until 2060, there is a buyer who is very happy to have lithium uncontaminated until that date, he is a friend of (Turning point USA).

This agreement frees the mysterious and powerful buyer from the problem of lithium interruption and in the process gives a golden gift to Ponce Lerou, who is not only untouchable before justice, but is today the "godfather" of lithium in Chile.

Lithium mining will continue to be as newsworthy as
has been the trend during the recent past, which allows companies to make fortunes links Canadian stock exchange, just by announcing that they discovered the "holy grail" of Direct Lithium Extraction (DLS), of course we have seen in 2023 that in 99% of cases they were hoaxes.

Most importantly, at some point in the first quarter of 2024 we will know the details of the agreement between SQM and Codelco, whose Memorandum of Understanding was announced as a panacea for a Chilean industry that has been paralyzed for a year.

What is close, a word of a fortune teller, is that Chile will lose second place in production, surpassed by Argentina, China and Zimbabwe.

Lithium companies from Israel that arrive with XtraLit in Argentina.
hashtag#chile, hashtag#Bolivia, hashtag#argentina, hashtag#oscarvargasvillazon, February 21, 2024.
The company XtraLit made an investment of US$104 million in Argentina to begin the extraction of the mineral.

XtraLit will invest in Argentina's lithium industry, with a group of Israeli companies that are experts in direct lithium extraction. In 2023, XtraLit was selected by Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM) – the largest lithium producer in South America – for its technology acceleration program.

Tenova Advanced Technologies, also present in Chile. Tenova TAKRAF offers the agglomeration plant, the On-Off leaching, waste management system and Tenova Bateman Technologies based on Bateman SettlerTM technology.

Addionics, a battery technology company based in Israel. The main investors are Deep Insight. They include Novelis, Magna International, JX Nippon Mining & Metals, Union Tech Ventures, 8090 Partners, GiTV, Talcar Corporation, impact investment fund Bridges Israel, Doral Energy Tech Ventures (Doral Energy CVC) and David Deak. NextGear Ventures and Vasuki Global Tech Fund.

The Israeli company ASTERRA, developer of algorithm-based technology for the analysis of satellite images, has announced the filing of a patent for its technology that allows it to locate lithium deposits.

Israeli specialty minerals company ICL has announced plans to build a $400 million lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode active material (CAM) manufacturing plant in St. Louis, ICL said this will be the first large-scale LFP materials manufacturing plant in the United States.

The Israeli company Epsilor Industries Ltd., Bet Shemesh, Israel, which manufactures batteries for military armored vehicles, such as the Merkava Mark IV tanks that equip NATO.

StoreDot, an Israeli company specializing in high-performance solid-state and lithium-ion batteries.

Behind the XtraLit company, there are investments from Halliburton Labs and Veligera Capital Fund, which also have stakes in some of the main productive and financial companies in Argentina.

What is XtraLit looking for on Argentinian soil?
XtraLit explained that the project aims to "expand the frontiers of Argentine lithium." This would be achieved by putting into production salt flats that are not economically viable today, as well as the extraction of lithium contained "in water produced from oil and gas, or geothermal brines."

It is good news for Argentina, there is only one loose end, it would help a lot if the MOSAD informs the Argentine government about what it knows about the AMIA attack, about which country manipulated Iran and the Hezbollah movement and about who killed Prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

Albemarle: The crash in lithium prices over the past year is holding back reinvestment in new supply.
As miners accelerated lithium production in 2022, the market swung from a supply deficit in 2022 to a surplus in 2023.
Lithium demand is expected to grow in the long term, but there will be a period of glut and low oil prices, which some analysts see persisting through 2025-2026

While major lithium suppliers continue to see a surge in long-term demand as the energy transition gathers momentum, the current low price environment is "unstainable," Kent Masters, Albemarle's chairman, president, and chief executive officer, said on the company's earnings call this week.

"For us to kind of reaccelerate, if you will, we'll need to get a better view of what pricing is and the long-term view of that as well. So, we think that the prices today are unsustainable. They're below operating cash levels of some assets that are currently operating. And they're definitely below reinvestment levels," Masters told analysts after Albemarle reported better-than-expected revenues and earnings for 2023.

We’ve got a great chat to share today, our interview with Romano Sala Tenna.

Romano is the co-founder of Katana Asset Management, a Perth-based long-only fund. We had a blast picking his brain over what the state of the economy is, how earnings season is shaping up, how interest rates are looking, his positioning in resources business plus several specific companies.

Enjoy the yarn!