American Battery Metals Corporation (OTCQB:ABML) has entered into an agreement to secure 305 unpatented lode mining claims covering about 6,100 acres administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) near Tonopah, Nevada.
The company -- which is in the process of changing its name to American Battery Technology Company (ABTC) -- said the agreement is in the form of an exclusive exploration license, giving it sole authority to conduct its surveying, sampling, and proprietary extraction trials to characterize these resources and to quantify the performance of the lithium extraction and manufacturing operations.
After concluding its trials and internal assessments, ABTC then has the exclusive option to purchase the lithium-bearing claims.
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Over the past two years, ABTC has been designing and optimizing its internally-developed processing train for the manufacturing of battery cathode grade lithium hydroxide from Nevada-based sedimentary claystone resources. The majority of these development efforts to date have been performed with samples provided by ABTC’s partner companies in the Tonopah region.
While the company will continue to work with these partners to refine, test, and validate its internally developed technologies for potential commercialization at these resource sites, ABTC said it will now also be evaluating the performance of its lithium extraction and manufacturing technologies directly on its own lithium-bearing resource.
It noted that preliminary evaluation of historical sampling and characterization efforts have indicated that the composition and structure of the resources on these claims are representative of resources identified on nearby claims.
In April 2020, American Lithium published a resource assessment of its 7,500-acre TLC project, which directly borders these ABTC secured claims, which stated a measured and indicated resource of 5.37 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, with an additional 1.76 million tonnes Inferred.
"Our in-house technology development and commercialization efforts for the domestic manufacturing of battery cathode grade lithium hydroxide directly support US federal efforts to reduce dependence on foreign sources of these critical materials that may not adhere to sufficient ethical and environmental standards for battery metals sourcing and manufacturing," said ABTC CEO and CTO Ryan Melsert in a statement.
"The construction and commissioning of our lithium-ion battery recycling pilot facility remain our primary focus, however, the magnitude of the entire battery recycling industry combined cannot meet the nearly insatiable near-term demand for these critical and strategic battery metals on its own. These recycling facilities must be supplemented by low-cost, low-environmental impact, and domestic primary battery metal manufacturing facilities in order to establish a truly secure closed-loop circular battery metals supply chain."
ABTC said it will begin the process of preparing and submitting a notice-level exploration permit application to the BLM, which includes environmental review and approval adhering to the Environmental Protection Agency’s requirements.
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