CleanTech Lithium PLC on Tuesday said it continues to progress projects towards producing battery-grade ‘green’ lithium, including the completion of several new wells, and ‘remains in positive dialogue’ with the Chilean government regarding new state participation requirements.

In late April, the Chile-focused sustainable lithium exploration and development company said it welcomed government proposals concerning the nationalisation of Chile’s lithium industry, saying these focused more on ‘partnership’ than nationalisation.

On Tuesday the company said Marcela Hernando, Chile’s minister of Mining, has clarified that Santiago will only seek state control of projects considered ‘strategic’, which does not apply to CleanTech Lithium. It confirmed that its projects are not subject to state participation requirements.

CleanTech Lithium said new wells at LV05 and LV06 have been completed at the Laguna Verde project. At LV05 it collected 62 samples with an average lithium grade of 202 milligrams per litre, along with 53 samples at LV06 with an average grade of 174 mg/l.

At its Francisco Basin project, CleanTech Lithium said it had completed all three new wells planned for its drilling campaign this year. Two extra wells have been added to the programme to further test the extension of the resource.

CleanTech Lithium also said that at the Llamara project a hole shut-in was needed at exploration drill hole LL01 for safety reasons, after porous sandstone was encountered and recorded brine and a gas sequence. The brine was at a shallower depth than expected, which the company said is a ‘positive sign’. A second exploration drill hole, LL02, was recently started following an evaluation of seismic data.

The company said it expects to commence a field programme, sampling the surface evaporite deposit at Llamara, during the third quarter of this year.

‘CleanTech Lithium continues to make significant progress on the ground across all three of our projects, with drilling campaigns running simultaneously and delivering results and valuable insights to inform our path to production,’ commented Chief Executive Officer Aldo Boitano.

‘We continue to have very positive discussions with the government and state entities regarding the development of our projects and will provide further updates on progress in the coming weeks.’

Shares in CleanTech Lithium were down 4.6% at 46.75 pence in London on Tuesday afternoon.

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