rincon update

Highlights
• 12 tonnes of 97% pure lithium carbonate produced YTD
• Next stage of pilot plant will produce 30 tonnes per month of 99.0+%
Li2CO3, targetted completion by November 2008
• 10,000 tonnes of sodium sulphate produced from Rio Grande – 12 staff
operating facility
• Potash purification facility to be installed soon
The Board of Directors are delighted to report that progress at the Rincon Salar is
progressing well. We have experienced very favourable evaporation conditions during
the summer and our improved production process is now consistently producing high
recoveries of lithium. The mass balance results have been outstanding in terms of
minimal loss of lithium as the brine moves through the production process.
The Rincon team under the leadership of Drs Sorentino, Galli and Alonso have been
able to produce 12 tonnes of lithium carbonate using our new production process and
chemicals that we have produced ourselves. The lithium carbonate will be further
purified to 99.0+% when additional equipment is installed which among other things
produces sodium hydroxide.
Production of Potash will commence when the necessary equipment is installed to
bring it up to 99.75% purity. The focus to date has been on lithium carbonate
production but potash will commence soon.
We have acquired an R-C drill which we are sending to Argentina to assist our
geological team with further work on our new lithium prospect and also in their search
for potash deposits to supplement production from Rincon.
Rio Grande
The Rio Grande mine is fully operational producing 10,000 tonnes of sodium sulphate
to date. This has already created savings of more than US$1.3million ($190 vs $60 per
tonne) to date compared to buying finished product. We need approximately 110,000
tonnes of sodium sulphate to produce 17,000 tonnes of lithium product. Rincon’s
strategy is to produce all our own input materials to keep our production costs as low
as possible. We now have all these in place.
We have a team of twelve working at the Rio Grande and shortly we will be completing
construction of permanent offices and a geological office facility.
17025 and ISO9000 Certification
The laboratory had its audit for this standard and met 99% of the requirements
enabling it to certify the quality of our lithium, potash and other products when
commercial production commences. Minor changes to the documentation have to be
made, but the audit team were impressed with our procedures and process.
A new laboratory will be located adjacent to a planned 1,600 sq metre warehouse
facility we are building near the township of Jujuy.