American Battery Technology Company, an American critical minerals manufacturing and lithium-ion battery recycling company, has received approvals for its preliminary Phase One subsurface sampling of its recently secured 305 lode mining claims situated on land in Little Smokey Valley near Tonopah, Nevada.
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The Notice of Operation Permit from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Tonopah Field Office and its Reclamation Bonding from the BLM Nevada State Office in Reno were the two required approvals.
With our permit and bonding in place, we are excited to now commence with exploratory drilling and subsurface sampling of these high potential resources.
Ryan Melsert, CEO, American Battery Technology Company
“The preparation, submittal, and approval of our permit in such a short time period is very rare and is a testament to the experience level and work ethic of our Resources team. We are extremely proud of these team members, and look forward to analyzing the results of these exploratory samples and continuing to accelerate the rapid development of this resource,” Melsert added.
The company earlier reported the early results of its surface sampling from these claims, and after witnessing favorable results, exploratory drilling on these claims, now called ABTC’s Tonopah Flats Lithium Exploration Project, is the next significant step in developing this high potential resource.
The samples gathered during these exploratory drilling operations will be tested and defined in order to measure the extent of the lithium-bearing deposit in depth, footprint and grades of lithium.
Initial evaluation of historical sampling and characterization efforts has shown that the structure and composition of the resources on these claims could be illustrative of resources identified on adjacent claims in the same region.
In April 2020, American Lithium circulated a resource assessment of their 7,500-acre TLC project, which directly forms borders with these ABTC secured claims, which specified a Measured and Indicated resource of 5.37 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, with an extra 1.76 million tons inferred.
In the past two years, ABTC has been engineering and enhancing its internally created processing train for the production of battery cathode grade lithium hydroxide from these Nevada-based sedimentary claystone resources. Most of these development efforts thus far have been completed with sedimentary claystone resource samples given by partner companies in the Tonopah, Nevada region.
While ABTC will carry on working with these partners to enhance, test and confirm its internally created technologies for possible commercialization at these resource sites, ABTC is also assessing the performance of its lithium extraction and production technologies immediately on its own lithium-bearing resource.
Our in-house technology development and commercialization efforts for the domestic manufacturing of battery cathode grade lithium hydroxide directly support US federal efforts to reduce dependence on foreign sources of these critical materials that may not adhere to sufficient ethical and environmental standards for battery metals sourcing and manufacturing.
Ryan Melsert, CEO, American Battery Technology Company
"The construction and commissioning of our lithium-ion battery recycling pilot facility remains our primary focus, however, the magnitude of the entire battery recycling industry combined cannot meet the near insatiable near-term demand for these critical and strategic battery metals on its own,” Melsert added.
These recycling facilities must be supplemented by low-cost, low-environmental impact, and domestic primary battery metal manufacturing facilities in order to establish a truly secure closed-loop circular battery metals supply chain.
Ryan Melsert, CEO, American Battery Technology Company