Advantage Lithium accelerates drilling at flagship Cauchari asset

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Canadian explorer Advantage Lithium has added a second drill rig at its Cauchari joint venture (JV) lithium property, located in the Cauchari Salar of Jujuy province, in north-west Argentina.

The Vancouver-based company said on Monday that the second rotary drill rig has been mobilised and has started drilling to speed up the exploration programme.

The additional drill’s first job is hole CAU09 in the south-east target area, 2 km south-west of drill hole CAU10. The company noted that, like CAU10, this hole is located near the property boundary with Lithium Americas’ large lithium resource, to extend the existing Cauchari JV resource to greater depth.

Hole CAU10 has now reached a final depth of 429 m. The hole will be widened to install well filters and casing, then sampled for brine.

The five planned rotary holes will be installed as test production wells to allow for pump testing at potential production flow rates. These wells could be used for future production, reducing future infrastructure requirements.

“We are focused on expanding the existing resource at the project and testing a large exploration target. As such, the drill holes in our programme are designed to test the exploration target at significantly greater depths than previous drilling [programmes],” commented Advantage CEO David Sidoo.

The project, on which Advantage has an option to earn a 75% interest from Orocobre, is in the so-called ‘lithium triangle’ – host to more than 70% of the world's known lithium reserves – between established lithium producer Orocobre and the Cauchari development project of Lithium Americas-SQM. It represents one of the best undeveloped lithium brine opportunities in South America.

Advantage expects lithium assay results by late August.