Pursuit moves Rio Grande Sur pilot plant closer to site operations

Pilot plant relocation clears key environmental hurdle

Pursuit Minerals Ltd (ASX:PUR) has received environmental approval to move its lithium pilot plant onto the Rio Grande Sur project in Argentina, clearing the way for construction of the first supporting infrastructure at the Sal Río II property. The approval covers eight pilot ponds, an approximately 812 square metre equipment storage facility and the transport of 76 items of equipment and components from Salta Capital.

The ponds will occupy an area of about 10 hectares, with each measuring roughly 100 metres by 100 metres. For Pursuit, the significance is less about the structures themselves than the shift from pilot work conducted away from the project to on-site operations using Rio Grande Sur brine. The company says the relocated plant is intended to support process optimisation and operating knowledge ahead of its planned commercial development.

Pursuit Managing Director and CEO Aaron Revelle said the company’s earlier pilot program had produced 99.5% lithium carbonate. He described the on-site plant as a bridge between that work and the planned 5,000-tonne-per-year operation, with the company also intending to produce lithium carbonate and lithium chloride at site.

Commercial evaporation pond approval remains pending

The next permitting step is already in motion. Pursuit has submitted an environmental approval application for the commercial-scale evaporation pond system required for the planned 5,000 tpa development. That is an application, not an approval, leaving a material regulatory step between the newly approved pilot infrastructure and any commercial-scale construction.

The company says feasibility study addendums for Rio Grande Sur are nearing completion and will assess expanded lithium carbonate and lithium chloride development pathways. Those studies are expected to incorporate updated technical, wellfield and process engineering work, but the release does not provide a revised production schedule, capital cost or financing plan.

Demasía drilling follows completed Mito hole

Exploration has also received a regulatory lift. A separate Environmental Impact Declaration now permits a 500-metre diamond drill hole and associated pad at Demasía, with DDH-4 planned to begin after DDH-3 at Mito was completed at approximately 560 metres following drilling and packer testing.

The program is designed to test the broader lithium-bearing salar system and potentially expand Pursuit’s existing 1.264 million-tonne lithium carbonate equivalent JORC Mineral Resource. No new assay results are reported in this release, so the resource-growth case remains dependent on the interpretation of DDH-3 and the results from the planned Demasía hole.

In parallel, Pursuit is preparing further drilling at its Sascha Marcelina Gold Project after completing induced-polarisation surveys. Six initial holes have been identified, while interpretation of the survey, artificial intelligence and machine-learning datasets continues to refine the targets for a larger second-phase program.