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International Lithium Files Technical Report with Indicated Resource Estimate of 1.25 Million Tonnes LCE at the Mariana Lithium Brine Project, Argentina - Seite 2

Further Report Details

ILC has completed four drilling campaigns on the Project since 2009: 7 reverse circulation (RC) holes and 16 cored holes. A total of 2,880 m were drilled on the Project during the last 10 months. A final campaign hole, MA16-24, was in-process as at the effective date of the Technical Report. Geophysical surveys were conducted downhole for the completed drill holes, using an electrical probe. Resistivity and spontaneous potential were measured. As part of a bulk extraction of lithium from brine bulk testwork undertaken in 2015 a pumping well, MA15-09-PW, and 2 monitoring wells, MA15-08-MW, MA15-10-MW, were drilled and constructed. Drill hole MA12-07 was used as a third monitoring well. The drilling and hydrogeological data indicates that the Mariana Project at Salar de Llullaillaco is a brine-bearing sedimentary filled basin complex with unconfined interconnected aquifer to considerable depth of 328m and possibly deeper. Based on the preliminary drill information, eight lithological classes were identified in the drill hole cores, shown in the west, east and southern extents of the basin. The aquifer volume is still open at depth in the majority of the salar since only two drill holes (MA16-23 and MA16-18) potentially intercepted suspected basement Oligocene to Pliocene volcanic lithologies.

Brine deposits are unlike the majority of mineral deposits in that they are fluid. Fluids within a brine deposit can move, and can mix with adjacent fluids when exploitation of a brine deposit begins. Evaluation of such deposits therefore requires special considerations that are not, in general, applied to other style of mineral deposits.

The assessment of brine deposit has been limited to defining mineral resources at different levels of certainty, varying from Indicated Resource to Exploration Target, based on the certainty provided by the data collected during fieldwork. Levels of assessment, as linked to data certainty are listed below, covering those areas that fall within the Project tenements only.

Brine resources are tabulated and reported for average specific yield (SY) of 15% and use a cut-off value of 230 mg/L Li in Table 1.

Table 1: Total indicated and total inferred resource estimates.