‘The Board confirms to Extremadura New Energies the origin of the application as a Direct Concession of Exploitation
The Junta de Extremadura, through the General Directorate of Industry, Energy and Mines, has notified Extremadura New Energies that from this moment it can already present the necessary documentation to process its project of underground extraction and first transformation of lithium in Cáceres. Thus, once ENE submitted - through the company of the Castilla Mining group - the request for the pass to Direct Concession of its project, the first step was to accredit by the company the presence of lithium in the Valdeflórez deposit in a sufficient amount to undertake this initiative.
The company demonstrated that the information from the studies carried out so far corroborated the capacity of the deposit, and now the Administration considers it demonstrated. Specifically, the resolution of the regional administration states that "according to the Report of the technicians of the General Directorate of Industry, Energy and Mines of April 9, 2024, the existence of a lithium deposit is demonstrated in the 2 mining grids requested as a direct concession of Exploitation, being technically and economically feasible to use it with the application of current exploitation technologies and metallurgical processes." Once this first step is completed, Extremadura New Energies will immediately present its environmental impact study, its restoration project and its exploitation project.
In this phase, the project will incorporate both the comments raised by the different administrations at the time in the Scope Document and the technical innovations announced with the new Li-Stream RPKTM process.
The CEO of the company, Ramón Jiménez, has stressed that from now on the project will be processed, and it will be the technicians of the Junta de Extremadura who will evaluate.
The company's objective is that this year the Exploitation Concession can be counted on, so that at the beginning of 2025 the works for the implementation of the project begin, which will last for about two years. According to this calendar, at the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027 the first tons of lithium hydroxide would be produced in the first transformation plant that will be located in Cáceres.
In total, the Extremadura New Energies project will involve an initial investment of more than 1.43 billion euros that will allow to reach an annual production of 33,000 tons of lithium hydroxide in battery grade. The direct employment that will be generated will be more than 1,500 jobs during the two years of construction and the order of 700 direct jobs during the 26 years of operation of the plant.’
