American Lithium Minerals is a U.S.-based mineral exploration company focused on the development of lithium and boron resources in Nevada. The company’s key objective is to develop a world-class lithium project that will capitalize on surging demand for lithium-ion batteries, particularly for hybrid and electric vehicles. Lithium is a high-priority and strategic mineral for the U.S. The country’s green energy legislation and long-term energy policies depend on developing a vibrant, domestic lithium-ion battery manufacturing sector.
American Lithium’s primary asset is the high-grade Borate Hills property in western Nevada, one of the world’s premier known lithium deposits and ranked by previous operator US Borax as the second-largest boron deposit in the U.S. A $4.5 million exploration and development program is aimed at completing an economic pre-feasibility study on the Borate Hills Project to advance the project to the feasibility stage.
Nevada is one of the world’s leading mining regions. The state supports North America’s only commercial lithium mine located 20 miles from Borate Hills.
American Lithium intends to develop Borate Hills and its other lithium brine exploration projects through cooperation with international partners.
Projects
Borate Hills - One of the World’s Premier Lithium Deposits
Lithium Rich, Ready for Development
American Lithium’s 100%-owned Borate Hills Project covers over 3,400 acres in a mineral-rich region of western Nevada. The project’s resource size, high lithium values, excellent road access, nearby rail/power infrastructure and Nevada’s pro-mining climate make Borate Hills one of the world’s premier lithium projects for future development. The property lies just 20 miles west of Chemetall Foote's Lithium Brine Operation at Clayton Valley, Nevada, the only lithium mine currently operating in North America.
A Large, High-Grade Deposit
Borate Hills contains both boron and lithium mineralization in high grades and thick deposits, providing excellent potential to develop an economically viable project. Known mineralization to date extends for at least 1.5 miles along surface, with lithium grades averaging 2,750ppm (or 0.275%). The deposit size and grade compare extremely well with other established lithium deposits worldwide.
The project is well advanced—US Borax identified a large deposit on the claims in the 1980s with thicknesses of up to 1300 feet. At the time, US Borax ranked Borate Hills as the second largest boron deposit in the United States (after their Kramer Borate mine in California).
Preparing for Project Feasibility by Spring 2011
The company’s intent is to invest US $4.5 million dollars over the next year to complete an economic pre-feasibility study on the Borate Hills Project to advance the project to the feasibility stage. Phase I of the planned 2010 program will include surface sampling, reconnaissance drilling and metallurgical testing. Phase II will incorporate detailed drilling, a continuation of metallurgical test-work and a pre-feasibility study. Both the first and second phases are expected to be completed by Spring 2011.
South Borate Hills the Prime Target for Now
In their 1980's exploration, US Borax drilled 50,000 feet across 57 separate holes, some of which were drilled to a depth of 2,000 feet. Although drilling began at North Borate Hills, discovery of the South Borate Hills Project in 1986 presented a larger project with higher lithium values.
Recent Sampling Backs up US Borax Results
Recent surface sampling at South Borate Hills returned boron grades of over 1%, lithium grades of up to 0.275% and Strontium credits. All other metals concentrations were low including iron, which can be deleterious for processing.
Montezuma Valley
American Lithium Minerals, Inc. has strategically position itself as a Montezuma Valley Nevada based lithium brine miner to support the growing demand for lithium based battery production in the USA.
American Lithium Minerals, Inc. owns 100% of the mineral rights to four claim blocks comprising some 16,000 acres strategically located in Esmeralda County Nevada in close proximity to major support centers and a local trained workforce. Work can be carried out all year round. Nevada has a long mining history.
The exploration of Montezuma Valley will be made much easier by the fact that the sources, transportation and the traps where the brine collects are all near the surface.
This is a geological rarity and gives American Lithium Minerals a very strong exploration advantage that significantly sets them apart from most mineral deposits and exploration models. Estimates of the lithium reserves of Nevada's Montezuma Valley area suggest that over eons, as much as 700 million kg of lithium have leached from the surrounding rhyolite lava flow and underlying ash-flow into the drainage system of Montezuma Valley area.
The volcanics surrounding the valley contain some of the richest lithium concentrations in the world and their brines and evaporities have been accumulating in the vast Montezuma and Clayton Valley for at least 33,000 years. These brines have the highest lithium content of any brines tested by the USGS in the southwestern US. The Clayton Valley area brines have been estimated to contain 700 million kg of Lithium to a depth of 1,200 ft. (Kunasz, 1975) The Clayton Valley area brines have the highest lithium content of all brines located in the southwestern United States.
The valley contains the only operating lithium mine in the US as well as the only lithium brine operation in the country, but only a fraction of this vast lithium resource is accounted for in the area's existing lithium operation.
Clayton Valley area is located in the center of Esmeralda County Nevada approximately 40 miles west of Goldfield and approximately 50 miles southwest of Tonopah. Access to the valley is by good paved road.
Lithium exists in Clayton Valley area in two modes: in solution within a brine and multiple solid phases such as hectorite (a clay mineral) and halite (evaporite salts). Lithium brine resources are now the preferred method of lithium recovery. The easily-processed brine is the resource American Lithium Minerals will exploit.
How Nature Cuts Recovery Costs
The process American Lithium Minerals, Inc. will use to obtain lithium carbonate from brine is so cost effective that hard-rock production is not longer economically viable.
Lithium brines are currently the only U.S. lithium source that can support mining without significant add-on profit from trace minerals such as tantalum, niobium, tin etc., (low manganese content within Nevada’s Montezuma Valley brines significantly reduces recovery costs, unlike Chile’s high manganese content brine deposits).
Nevada brines are pumped from the ground and progressed through a series of evaporation ponds. Over the course of 12 to 18 months, concentration of the brine increases to 6,000 parts per million (ppm) lithium through solar evaporation. When the lithium chloride reaches optimum concentration, the liquid is pumped to a recovery plant and treated with soda ash, precipitating lithium carbonate. The carbonate is then removed through filtration, dried, and shipped.
The lowest cost lithium producers will be tomorrow’s major lithium producers. US based lithium producers and US based lithium product manufacturers will have a huge advantage over their competition in other countries because of Obama’s Clean Green Energy Revolution.
The stimulus package and the desire to have independence from foreign supplied energy makes development of the Montezuma Valley lithium deposits a foregone conclusion.
Regional Geology
The Clayton Valley-Montezuma range is underlain by a thick body of tuffaceous sediments, ranging from upper Miocene to Pliocene in age. The volcanic sequence has been named the Esmeralda formation and consists of approximately 15,000 feet of lucustrine volcanic sediments which include poorly sorted conglomerates and sandstones, limestone, mudstones and tuffaceous units. Fossils suggest a relatively fresh environment of deposition.
Two major volcanic events where recorded in the Tertiary sediments. An early Pliocene volcanic episode is represented by a single welded tuff unit with an age of 22 million years and is exposed on the northern end of the Silver Peak Range. The tuff was ejected prior to the block faulting that disturbed the drainage of the Silver Peak region and created several closed basins into which the lower part of the Esmeralda formation was deposited.
A second period of volcanic eruptions with major faulting occurred during the middle Pliocene and resulted in the deformation of the lower Esmeralda sediments creating an angular unconformity. The oldest sediments above the unconformity were assigned to the upper Esmeralda unit and have been dated at 6.9 million years. The widespread ash fall tuff that crops out around Clayton Valley and the Montezuma peak area has the same age as the upper Esmeralda sediments (6.9 million years) and has been subjected to major faulting which created the present topography.
The uplift of the Sierra Nevada at the beginning of the Pleistocene caused the climate of the Basin and Range Province to become generally arid. Pluvial periods, correlative with the glacial stages in the highlands, resulted in increased runoff and formation of temporary lakes in the basins. The interpluvial periods were more arid and led to the concentration of the lake waters the remnants of which are the lithium rich evaporities.
Lithium, the Next "Hot" Commodity
Lithium-ion batteries are already widely in use in a variety of portable electronic devices including over 60% of mobile phones and 90% of laptop computers. However, the most significant grown in the demand for Lithium Ion batteries will be linked to the next generation of hybrid/electric vehicles. Lithium batteries are already in proto types destined for the automotive market.
- GM has announced plans to build a lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery plant to supply the power for its Chevy Volt, scheduled to debut in 2011.
- BMW plans to launch its remodeled Li-ion battery-powered 750i luxury sedan to the Japanese in 2010. This year, the company is producing 500 all-electric MINI Es, also with Li-ion batteries, for leasing in select cities.
- Toyota plans to launch plug-in hybrid Priuses with Li-ion batteries later this year.
- Mercedes-Benz plans to launch its S400 Blue HYBRID with a Li-ion battery next year.
- The Ford Escape plug-in hybrid with the same power technology is slated for 2012.
- The Tesla Roadster, Chyrsler EcoVoyager, Dodge ZEO, Jeep Renegade and the Saturn Flextreme are all slated for li-ion batteries.
- Nissan will use Li-ion batteries for the 65,000 hybrids they hope to manufacture by 2010.
- Mitsubishi Motors Corp. anticipates that demand will increase fivefold to meet the needs of electric vehicles.
Washington Legislators are keenly aware that if the US does not develop a domestic lithium-ion battery manufacturing sector, America may very well be shut out of the electric car business – he who makes the batteries will also make the cars.
Lithium Demand Expected to Grow 20% Per Year
Automotive batteries are not the only users of lithium: aerospace alloys, ceramics, glass, lubricants, refrigeration, pharmaceuticals, greases, silver solder, textiles, propellants and in the production of synthetic rubber.
In 2006, according to the USGS, the United States was the leading consumer of lithium minerals and compounds and the leading producer of value-added lithium materials.
- According to the USGS, overall demand for lithium is growing at a rate of 4-5% per year
- Demand for lithium destined for battery usage is predicted to grow by 20% per year
- The worldwide market for rechargeable lithium batteries is estimated to be worth over $4 billion/year
- The automotive market alone is projected to reach $337 million in 2012, and $1.6 billion in 2015
If the promise by President Obama that one million American made hybrid vehicles will be on American roads by 2015 is to be met then there is no substitute for lithium based battery technology at this stage of the energy revolution.
According to The National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture: “Lithium ion batteries are anticipated to replace gasoline as the principal source of energy in future cars and military vehicles."
Now, with the big push to renewable energy and far less reliance on fossil fuels, a market is starting to develop in the United States for more advanced batteries. This, combined with loan guarantees, will act as an incentive that could very well jumpstart the advanced battery industry in the US.
Lithium, the Metal
Lithium (pronounced as LITH-i-em ) is a comparatively rare element. It was discovered in the mineral petalite (LiAl(Si2O5)2) by Johann August Arfvedson in 1817 and was first isolated by William Thomas Brande and Sir Humphrey Davy through the electrolysis of lithium oxide (Li2O). Today, larger amounts of the metal are obtained through the electrolysis of lithium chloride (LiCl). Lithium is not found free in nature and makes up only 0.0007% of the earth's crust.
Lithium is used to synthesize cathode material for lithium ion batteries. Depending on the design and chemical compounds used, lithium cells can produce voltages from 1.5 V to about 3.7 V, twice the voltage of an ordinary zinc-carbon battery or alkaline cell. Lithium batteries are widely used in products such as portable consumer electronic devices.
But there are other uses as well for lithium and its compounds. Lithium has the highest specific heat of any solid element and is used in heat transfer applications. It is used to make special glasses and ceramics, including the Mount Palomar telescope's 200 inch mirror. Lithium is the lightest known metal and can be alloyed with aluminum, copper, manganese, and cadmium to make strong, lightweight metals for aircraft. Lithium hydroxide (LiOH) is used to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere of spacecraft.
Although it is found in many rocks it is always in very low concentrations. There are a fairly large number of both lithium mineral and brine deposits but only comparatively a few of them are of actual or potential commercial value. The Clayton Valley lithium brine reserve is second only to the Salar de Uyuni area of Bolivia, which holds half of the world's lithium reserves. The U.S. is fortunate to have enough lithium-rich evapoerates to meet the needs of the new energy paradigm for centuries to come.
Nevada and Lithium
New York Times
Nev. Mining Firm Seeks Place in Emerging Lithium Market
By PHIL TAYLOR of Greenwire
WINNEMUCCA, Nev. -- Buried just below the arid sagebrush steppe of this high desert region lies a mineral resource that could one day power millions of American cars and trucks.
It's not oil, or natural gas, or even hydrogen.
Locked inside the teal-gray clay less than 300 feet below the surface are millions of tons of lithium, a lightweight element major automotive companies have branded as the low-carbon fuel of tomorrow.
The Kings Valley deposit -- created by massive volcanic eruptions more than 15 million years ago -- will soon be unearthed, processed, refined and shipped off to be manufactured into batteries that will power a new generation of hybrid electric and plug-in vehicles.
With more than 11 million tons of lithium carbonate potential, the site is believed to be the fifth-largest lithium deposit in the world and promises to brighten America's prospects for energy independence, according to developer Western Lithium USA Corp.
"What we're doing is matching our development time frame with the growth of the electric car market," said Jay Chmelauskas, president of the Reno-based company, which hopes to open a major mine at the site by 2014. "That is happening faster than we expected."
At full production, the Western Lithium mine could churn out more than 30,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent per year, with an additional 125,000 tons of potassium sulfate, a feedstock for fertilizer, according to company projections.
"The first stage of a potential multi-stage project is envisioned to supply enough lithium for up to 1 million electric and hybrid cars annually that would use lithium-ion batteries to store power," Chmelauskas said.
The company plans to drill about 80 to 100 holes this summer to further confirm the lithium deposit and is scheduled to begin early mine planning by the end of the year.
A global rush
Western Lithium is one of nearly a dozen firms that have announced plans to open or expand lithium mines around the world, according to R. Keith Evans, a geologist and industry consultant. At least 60 more projects are in various stages of exploration, with at least a dozen centered in the Western United States, Evans said.
A number of firms are exploring for lithium in southwestern Nevada, where currently only one producer extracts small amounts of the mineral from evaporated brine pools.
Another startup company is developing plans to filter lithium from geothermal brines near California's Salton Sea, a project that is "either going to be a failure or a roaring success," said Evans, who estimated the Salton Sea project's resource potential at more than 1 million tons of lithium.
Still other firms are exploring the possibility of milling and processing lithium from a vast hardrock deposit in western North Carolina estimated to contain up to 2.5 million tons of the mineral.
That project, and Chemetall Foote Corp.'s Silver Peak Mine in Nevada, received nearly $30 million in federal stimulus funds to boost production of battery-grade lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide.
The mining firms are racing to meet what many believe will be a surging global demand for lithium, a relatively inexpensive mineral better known for its use as a mood stabilizer and strengthener in materials like ceramics, glasses and metal alloys.
Automakers are planning major rollouts of vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries as early as this fall, and the Obama administration has set a goal of having at least 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015.
To jump-start that goal, the administration last fall announced nearly $1 billion in Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants for lithium battery material suppliers, battery manufacturers and a lithium battery recycler.
Can U.S. firms compete?
The federal funding is intended to prevent the United States from trading a dependency on foreign oil for a dependence on foreign batteries and their constituent materials. Currently only 3 percent of the world's lithium supply comes from the United States -- all of it from Chemetall's brine operation in southwest Nevada.
Global production is dominated by a few large companies in Chile, Argentina, Australia and China, and nearly half of the world's reserves lie buried in Bolivia, where a leftist government has refused repeated overtures from Western firms hoping to develop the reserve.
Lithium was also among several strategic minerals recently discovered in Afghanistan, along with copper, rare earths and gold worth nearly $1 trillion, according to a Pentagon report cited by the New York Times (Greenwire, June 14).
But suggestions that Afghanistan could become the next "Saudi Arabia of lithium" are premature, said Jack Medlin, of the U.S. Geological Survey, because estimates of the mineral are highly speculative and rely on limited field testing. Observers also note that Afghanistan -- war-torn and lacking the political and material infrastructure needed for industrial mining -- is decades away from extracting any of those minerals.
For now, that leaves nearly two-thirds of world lithium production in the hands of three companies: FMC Corp., Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile S.A. and Chemetall, a subsidiary of Rockwood Holdings Inc.
"If this is such an important mineral, should we not be looking at a more diversified source?" said Chmelauskas of Western Lithium.
But with a current glut in lithium supply and new projects coming online in countries like Argentina, Australia, Finland, Canada and Serbia, U.S. entrants to the market risk a drying up of demand, Evans warned.
"You've got a dozen or more companies all planning to come through to production in three years, and you have to ask, 'Who is going to buy it?'" Evans said.
Many also question whether U.S. firms can produce lithium at a cost that competes with South American firms, which cheaply extract the mineral through evaporation of vast brine pools.
Western Lithium said it will produce lithium from its hectorite clay deposit more cheaply than it can be mined from hardrock ores such as those in Australia, but the firm will employ a pioneering technology that is yet to be commercially proven.
"It's going to be a very cutthroat market," said Brian Jaskula, a USGS lithium specialist. "Most of these projects -- 95 percent -- aren't going to work out."
Kings Valley benefits, challenges
Several large piles of clay and a few dirt roads are all that distinguishes the Western Lithium project from the surrounding ranchlands and potato fields overlooking the snow-capped Santa Rosa Mountains.
The site was first explored in the late 1970s by Chevron Corp., which drilled hundreds of holes in the soft clay in search of uranium to fuel nuclear reactors.
A former parent company of Western Lithium acquired the site in 2005, and the latter has since drilled about 125 additional holes to confirm the estimates of recoverable lithium. Phase one of the project could yield $263 million in annual revenue over the mine's 18-year lifetime, the company reported.
"The mining portion is going to be relatively simple," Chmelauskas said. Much of the lithium resource is located within 15 feet of the surface, he added, making for a relatively simple mining and reclamation operation.
The lithium-rich clay will be combined with gypsum and dolomite and roasted to 1,000 degrees. The material will then be leached with water and combined with sodium carbonate to produce lithium carbonate.
Western Lithium has worked with industry partners in Chile on plans for the roasting process, but no company has ever successfully commercialized the technology.
The firm is busy preparing an environmental analysis for the Bureau of Land Management on the anticipated impacts to species like bighorn sheep, pygmy rabbits and sage grouse, said Dennis Bryan, senior vice president of development.
State wildlife officials are concerned about any impact the project may have on the migration of bighorn sheep, a species the state reintroduced into the area in the 1980s. Six sheep have been collared to evaluate whether the proposed mine site would block the animals' movements from the Montana Mountains to the nearby Double H Mountains, but so far none of the animals have made the trek, Bryan said.
"When this 18-month study is done, we'll have a map that will tell us exactly where these animals go to lamb and where they go to winter," said Chris Healy, spokesman for the Nevada Department of Wildlife.
Bryan said the team is also working to map active habitat for sage grouse, a chicken-sized bird deemed worthy of federal protection under the Endangered Species Act but precluded from listing by Fish and Wildlife Service earlier this year (Greenwire, March 5).
BLM studies found two active leks within two miles of the mine site, but their location atop a large cliff makes it unlikely that mining activity would interfere with the bird's courting behaviors, said Kathleen Rehberg, a geologist at the agency's Winnemucca office.
"They're actually pretty much shielded by the topography," she said, adding that Western Lithium's exploration permit prohibits drilling during early morning breeding hours in the spring.
Emerging markets
Meanwhile, Western Lithium is seeking operating and investment partners to help move the $427 million project forward.
Production costs are projected to be on par with the brine formations of South America, meaning the mine could be competitive with lithium producers in Chile and Argentina, according to the firm.
But the cost of lithium may not be a significant factor to battery manufacturers as the mineral represents less than 3 percent of a vehicle battery's total cost.
And despite a current lull in lithium demand, experts forecast steady growth with the increased sales of devices such as laptops, cellular phones and iPods, and the widespread adoption of battery-powered vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt, both due out in the coming year.
Commercial-scale lithium-ion battery storage is another emerging market for suppliers, with Southern California Edison planning to deploy a massive 25-megawatt lithium-ion battery to stabilize power from new wind farms at a substation in the Tehachapi Mountains.
Demand for lithium could surge 40 percent by 2014, according to a recent report from Byron Capital Markets Inc. Galaxy Resources Ltd. earlier this year said demand for the battery material may gain 18 percent this year as consumption returns following the global economic slump.
"If some of these demand projections turn out to be true, we're going to need a whole lot of lithium," said Evans. "The more places to get it, the better."
