Galan Lithium Limited (ASX:GLN) has contracted South American consultants Ad-Infinitum SPA to commence the development of preliminary studies into the processing options for the Candelas Lithium Project in Argentina.
Managing Director Juan Pablo Vargas de la Vega said the studies will focus on conventional processing technologies including traditional evaporation pond systems and associated lithium carbonate plant.
Ad-Infinitum SPA is a Chilean based company with broad experience in providing specialised analysis of evaporation pond systems, processing plants and process design in Argentina and Australia.
It has provided consultancy services to Livent Corp.(ex-FMC), Galaxy Resources, Yara Australia, Salt Lake Potash, and to other related projects through engineering firms Worley and GHD.
Ad-Infinitum is headed by Marcelo Bravo and Mr. Hermes Cartes, who are both chemical engineers and former employees of SQM and together have more than 30 years of experience in the lithium and potash industries.
Highly regarded mining engineer Boris Caro will oversee Galan’s team and advise on strategy and study development activities into the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) for the Candelas lithium brine project.
Mr Caro has a Master in Mineral Economics obtained from the Curtin University of Technology (Western Australia) and has over 20 years of experience in the mineral industry working in several countries including Australia.
Most recently he was the Study/Project Manager for Orocobre Ltd working on the Olaroz Expansion Lithium Project in Argentina (May 2017 to April 2019). During this time he was responsible for the completion of the Feasibility Study, leading front-end engineering, securing environmental permits and overseeing the commencement of construction activities.
In October 2019, the company released its maiden JORC (2012) compliant Mineral Resource estimate for the Candelas lithium brine project located in Catamarca province.
The resource estimate was completed by the company’s consultants SRK (Australia) and was conducted by their Australian and Argentinian based teams.
The indicated mineral resource estimate for the higher-grade Candelas North zone is 684,850 tonnes of contained lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) product grading at 672mg/l Li (at 500mg/l Li cut off).