PEA gives Wealth Minerals’ Kuska lithium project 400,000-tonne output over 20 years

Wealth Minerals‘ (TSXV: WML; US-OTC: WMLLF) new preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for its Kuska lithium salar project in northern Chile outlines output of 20,000 tonnes per year over 20 years. 

The PEA, released on Thursday, gives the project a post-tax net present value (at 10% discount) of US$1.1 billion and an internal rate of return of 28%, with baseline capital expenditures estimated at US$749 million, including US$44 million to be spent on additional exploration and permitting. Operating expenses are estimated to be US$5,849 per tonne of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) produced at the project, located near the border with Bolivia. 

“This is an important milestone in the development of our lithium projects in Chile and brings us one step closer to execution and production,” said operative CEO Francisco Lepeley. “Our Kuska project is being developed consistently with the national lithium strategy defined earlier this year by the Chilean government.”

Lepeley added that the company’s development plan includes environmentally friendly direct lithium extraction technology, active involvement from the Quechua Indigenous community, and industry partnerships that could lead to downstream lithium processing.

The project, located almost in the centre of South America’s battery metal mining hotspot known as the Lithium Triangle, the latest to advance as explorers around the world ramp up efforts to develop the metal used in electric vehicle batteries and other technologies needed for the green energy transition. 

Mining operations at Kuska will consist of a well field with brine pumping capacity and a reinjection feed system to return depleted brine into the salar. A direct lithium extraction method to be followed by refining will produce lithium carbonate with a purity of more than 99.5%.

The initial operation will produce 10,000 tons per year of LCE, and that rate will be doubled with the addition of a second production module within two years.

Wealth intends to decarbonize its lithium production operations as much as possible and has begun investigations into using renewable energy supplies that will power the production plant and associated infrastructure. Both solar and geothermal energy sources will be considered.

Kuska hosts indicated resources of 741,000 tonnes LCE in material grading 175 mg per litre, and inferred resources of 701,000 tons grading 185 mg per litre, according to an initial resource published last year.