Shares of Bacanora Minerals (CVE:BCN) nearly doubled in value on Monday after the company announced high lithium recoveries from preliminary metallurgical testing on samples from its La Ventana lithium deposit in Mexico.
The testing, which was conducted by the Metallurgical Division of Inspectorate Exploration and Mining Services of Richmond, Canada, was done on a total of four samples averaging 9.88 kilograms each. The samples consisted of split drill core with two samples from each of the upper and lower clay units.
The bench scale testing, which focused on two process options designed to liberate lithium into solution from the clays, showed the roast-leach process to be the most favourable, as 86.7% of lithium in the upper clay and 88.6% of lithium in the lower clay was put into solution, according to a statement released earlier this afternoon. During this process, the roasting of the clays was tested with several combinations of reagents, with the roasted product leached with water in order to put lithium into solution.
Test work on the lithium-bearing solutions derived from this process included two stages of evaporation to concentrate the lithium, yielding assays from the upper clay ranging from 14.6% to 15.85% Li or 77.8% to 84.5% lithium carbonate. Precipitate from the lower clay ranged from 15.5% to 16.96% Li or 82.2% to 90.4% lithium carbonate.
The company said that further testing is underway in order to optimize the reagent ratios among other factors, with the aim of increasing the lithium recoveries from the clays and bolstering the purity of the lithium carbonate to 99.5% – or battery grade material. Test work will also be done on larger samples, Bacanora added.
“The high recoveries of lithium carbonate demonstrate that lithium from the La Ventana deposit is soluble and that lithium carbonate can be produced from the resulting solution and confirms results already achieved at Bacanora’s laboratory,” said president Martin Vidal.
“The company looks forward to advancing efforts to achieve a commercial grade lithium product as well as investigating the recovery of other alkali metal compounds.”
The company’s Sonora lithium project is made up of the La Ventana, La Ventana 1 and the San Gabriel concessions, which are owned 100% by Bacanora, along with the contiguous El Sauz, El Sauz 1, El Sauz 2, Fleur and Fleur 1 concessions, which are owned 70% by Bacanora and 30% by REM. Inferred resources for the La Ventana deposit were estimated at60 million tonnes averaging 1.6% lithium carbonate equivalent, assuming 100% recovery and no process losses.
Its stock climbed nearly 83% on the news Monday, to settle at 75 Canadian cents in Toronto, for year-to-date gains of 150%.
