What is being billed as Canada’s largest lithium extraction brine resource has been identified in central Alberta.
Calgary-based E3 Lithium Ltd. announced on Tuesday it had upgraded its resource to 16 million tonnes of measured and indicated lithium brine in a large area running roughly from Bashaw to Olds.
“This resource upgrade is the largest of its kind in Canada and is significant on a global scale,” said E3 president and CEO Chris Doornbos in a statement.
“The amount of data and geological work required to upgrade resources of this magnitude is significant and further increases our understanding of the Leduc Aquifer and as a result, our technical confidence in our commercialization plans.”
E3 says 6.6 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent had been measured and another 9.4 million tonnes indicated. The findings provide a clearer picture of the quality of the resource and was reached by analyzing data from its 2022 drill program, ongoing core sample analysis and the development of a comprehensive geological model of the Bashaw district.
The company also has about 900,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent in the Rocky Mountain House area.
As a comparison, Natural Resources Canada says about 3.2 million measured and indicated lithium exists in hard rock deposits in the country. Canada has identified lithium as a critical mineral because it is a key material in the renewable energy transition.
As of 2021, Australia was the world’s largest lithium producer providing 55,000 tonnes of the 105,000 tonnes produced world-wide.
E3’s goal is to produce high-purity, battery-grade lithium products that could be used in batteries for everything from electric vehicles to cellphones, laptops and other electronics.
Upgrading the resource to measured and indicated provides enough certainty to allow extraction planning to take place and to prepare a final evaluation of the economic viability of retrieving lithium from the brine located in aquifers more than two kilometres underground in a long swath of land running northeast and southwest of Red Deer.
E3 Lithium Ltd. got a recent boost from the federal government through a $3.5 million grant from Natural Resources Canada’s Critical Minerals Research Development and Demonstration program.
The money will go towards the design, construction and operation of E3’s field pilot plant, which is expected to begin operations this summer.
As part of its 2023 plan, the company intends to seek out and evaluate commercially available process and design technology to reduce risk and keep the goal of a commercial facility by 2026 on track.