White Bluff Lithium & Potash Salts Project
GRANTED EXPLORATION LICENCES 09/2282, 09/2313 AND APPLICATION 09/2426
Lithium Lakes has approximately 500 sq km of Lithium, Soft Potash, and other Salt deposits drilled to over 1.3 km and still open at depth at White Bluff, Yaringa, WA. The Salt, Potash, Lithium and other minerals were discovered in 1966 when and Hamelin Pool No.1 wells, drilled by Conoco logged 36.2m and 22.9m accumulated, of massive salt beds.
World Class Project Potential
Widespread deposits were outlined and plans were well advanced to develop the deposits, into a major Potash solution mine by 1968. Conoco funded what they call (non JORC) “preliminary feasibility” studies concluding a million tonnes of Potash products annually could be produced from the project, worth now around $1 billion per year
Solar Evaporation Production of Lithium, Potash & Other Salts
White Bluff is a hot, dry, flat coastal area, with one of the highest solar evaporation rates in the world. It is well suited for the production of Potash and Lithium salts by evaporation. It is cheaper to pump brine and use Solar evaporation to do a lot of the work than mine hard rock.
Cheap Solar evaporation enables commercial ocean extraction of even low priced common Salt. Nearby at Shark Bay and at other nearby coastal locations, world class operations use ordinary seawater or salt lakes to produce Common Salt. This exports at around $25 per tonne.
Sulphate of Potash (Soft potash or SOP) has become a much higher priced commodity in the last decades and now sells for around $1,000 per tonne while Lithium metal is at around $20,000 per tonne. We are fortunate at White Bluff to have much higher grades of Potash than many other producers like the Dead Sea, with much higher Lithium grades, as well. Our Lithium grades are as high as 200ppm Li while the Dead Sea is at around a modest 10ppm Li but from which they have recently started pilot plant Lithium salts production.
A Million Tonnes Annually 1968 Potash Study
Conoco commissioned independent consultants, Hazen Research to determine feasibility for Potash mining of the White Bluff leases. The project was put on hold after 1968, as Potash prices declined. Prices for Soft Potash (SOP) are now around $1,000 or greater per tonne compared to around $50 in 1968. Similarly with recent sky-rocketing Lithium prices, Lithium brines are now major Lithium producers. Our best Lithium drill results are 200ppm (1,000ppm Lithium Chloride equivalent), occurring with Potash.
Much Higher Potash Grades Then Others
The original Hazen pre-feasibility study remarkably, shows our White Bluff postulated feedstock brine to around five times higher in Potash (K) than the average of other producers that they compared it with.
They postulated a headgrade of 5.3%KCI equivalent which generally corresponds with recorded drill results for Hamelin No.1 drill hole, (and presumably results from Yaringa No.1 available to them). There were very poor markets for the planned co-products of common Salt, Lithium or Magnesium at the time.
Growing Modern Demand For Lithium SOP & Salt
Lithium common Salt and Magnesium production were scarcely considered in the 1968 Hazen study. Today there are now three of the world’s biggest Salt export operations located on nearby coasts for convenient export to Asia. Very recently strong new demands have emerged for common Salt in the so called “plumbing China- PVC” surge. There is also a different world for Lithium and soft Potash now with prices up around tenfold or more in recent decades.
Opportunities For Early Investors
With improved brine extraction technologies today, Lithium, Potash, Salt Magnesium are now all targeted for profitable production. We plan soon to do limited added drilling, to enable bankable feasibility studies for solution mining of Lithium and Potash with Salt and Magnesium as important co-products. Subject to feasibility we will then build a pilot plant followed by full scale production. This we believe is a remarkable opportunity for our company with tiny capitalization.
Three of the world’s biggest Salt export operations are now located close on nearby coasts for convenient export to Asia. Very recently strong new demands have emerged for common Salt in the so called “plumbing China- PVC” development explosion.
A Bright Future For Lithium Lakes Soft Potash
Today, climate fluctuations, land degradation and world population growth look certain to greatly increase future Potash demand. It is becoming more and more a very desirable commodity for mining majors.
This is illustrated with the recent example of BHP’s multi-billion dollar takeover bid for the world’s largest Potash and solution miner Potash Corp of Canada. Drilling results on our leases have produced grades around 2% K (equivalent to around 5% Sulphate of Potash), much better than the 0.7% Potassium of the Dead Sea or even less for many remote inland WA, SOP hopefuls.
Modern horticultural needs have greatly increased the demand for soft Potash compared with the more traditional Potassium Chloride mined by many producers.
Improved Lithium Extraction From Brines
Recently, Tenova-Bateman have begun producing Lithium from their Dead Sea pilot plant. They state their new process could be economic from previously unprofitable Dead Sea brine at just 10 ppm Lithium concentration. In their process the raw Dead Sea brine is first concentrated in solar ponds to around 30ppm Li. It is then pumped into their membrane plant. Many new technologies such as this one are now making Lithium and other salts production from brines, cheaper and less labour intensive Google “Youtube Tenova Lithium” to see 21st century technology.
Our highest Lithium intersections of 200ppm (1,000ppm Lithium Chloride equivalent) over 0.3m, or 70ppm (350 ppm Lithium Chloride equivalent) over 2m, occur within our highest Potash value beds. The highest 200ppm Li grade was at the bottom of the Hamelin Pool No1 drill hole open at depth. Depths of a kilometre or more can be better for solution mining with heat causing an increase in solubilities that we been advised by an independant consultant will make processing easier.
The combined value of all dissolved commodities in our feedstock brine is targeted to be around $50 – $100 per tonne. This is the equivalent of around 1 – 2 gms gold equivalent per tonne. However one needs to bear in mind the simplicity of the brine pumping and evaporation processes that can make brines much more profitable than hard rock gold ore.
This low cost production is highlighted by the nearby Coastal multinational’s very large scale ponds producing Salt from seawater at around 3-4 % Salt concentration. The value of the contained Salt in a tonne of feedstock seawater that they use for their Salt production is less than $1.