Galan drilling to extend lithium resource at Hombre Muerto West

Galan has identified potential upside to resources at its Hombre Muerto West project after extensional drilling extended the scope of the lithium brine reservoir.

Diamond hole PP-02-22, which was completed to a depth of 450m at the Pata Pila licence, extends the brine potential by a further 800m from existing drillhole PP-01-19 to within 1km of the neighbouring Livent tenement boundary.

Downhole geophysics indicate high porosity intervals while core logs and cuttings show strong indicators for brine-bearing production aquifers.

Galan Lithium (ASX:GLN) says the results will be incorporated into the upcoming resource update for the project, which is expected during the third quarter of 2022.

“This exploration diamond hole has further unlocked the potential of the world-class lithium brine resource held at the HMW project,” managing director Juan Pablo Vargas de la Vega said.

“The results have enhanced our hydrogeological modelling, a key to confirmation of Reserve estimates, and delivered further Mineral Resource upside at HMW.

“Following the new exploration target areas identified by the recent TEM geophysical survey, we now look forward to aggressively drilling these additional potential HMW Mineral Resource expansion zones from this quarter through the rest of 2022.”

Extending lithium brines

Diamond hole PP-02-22 was aimed at extending the company’s knowledge of the Pata Pila licence area so as to build-out the hydrogeological models required to confirm Reserves estimates for Hombre Muerto West.

It also sought to provide key geological data for testing extensions to the existing HMW Resource in both the horizontal and vertical dimensions.

Downhole geophysical logging returned porosity values above 10% with zones that exceed 20% and 30% while analysis of Zelandez results suggest favorable zones for potential brine extraction.

Galan will now move diamond drilling activities to identified Resource expansion targets.

galan lithium — Aerial view of S1 pond filling with brine. Pic: Supplied

Pilot evaporation operations

Progress has also been made on the company’s pilot plant work with brine filling of the first evaporation pond nearing completion and evaporation testing set to begin.

This marks the start of large-scale piloting activities at the project.

Data from this pilot will initial an evaporation trial which will allow the calibration of the simulation model to predict the completion time for achieving the first batch of brine concentrate with 6% lithium content produced by the pilot plant.

This article was developed in collaboration with Galan Lithium, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.