Zacatecas, Zac. The Canadian mining company Advance Gold Corporation announced that through its subsidiary in Mexico (of the same name) “it has signed a purchase agreement” to acquire 13 properties where, according to prospective studies, there are salt deposits with significant lithium content. , potassium and boron, in the semi-desert shared by San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas.
The information was disseminated by the company on its portal (advancegold.ca), in which it reports on its silver and gold mining operations: Kakamega, in Kenya, and Tabasqueña-Tesorito, in Zacatecas. Now it will add the lithium exploitation project.
Advance Gold Corporation announced that it will acquire “a pilot plant designed and built under the direction of Roberto Pérez Garibay (owner of the Mexican company Hot Spring Mining), who is an expert in mineral recovery and an extraction method (of lithium) , patented ”.
Allan Barry Laboucan, President and CEO of Advance Gold Corp, commented: “We are excited to diversify our project portfolio with a group of lithium-potassium-boron salt flats prospects in central Mexico.
“There is a strong investor appetite for lithium projects, due to the search for alternative energy sources with the Joe Biden administration in the United States and around the world,” noted Allan Larry Laboucan.
The Canadian corporate stated in the statement published on its website on March 2 what were the main conditions of the deal with the Mexican Hot Spring Mining: the foreign company “has the right to buy a 90 percent stake in 13 future lithium salt flats- potassium-boron in Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí ”.
Likewise, the Canadian mining company agreed with its Mexican subsidiary “that it will retain a 10 percent share of production, which will become a share in commercial production.
“Advance Gold will pay five million shares upon approval of the agreement (by the federal government); will buy the test plant for $ 150,000 in two years and have exclusive rights to the patented lithium extraction method. “
The mining transnational described as “impressive” the lithium recovery work in the salt flats carried out by Roberto Pérez Garibay “in the prestigious Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (Cinvestav) Saltillo Unit”.
Pérez Garibay is “an expert in mineral recovery. In his research he concluded that they are susceptible to magnetic and heavy mineral separation, creating a concentrate that reacts very favorably to common leaching methods for lithium recovery in short periods ”, with high yields.
“These salt flats have potential for short-term lithium production and complement our efforts in the exploration of precious metals” from its Tabasqueña-Tesorito silver and gold mine, located in the same southern semi-desert region of Zacatecas.
Calderón and Peña Nieto facilities to investors
The lithium-rich salt deposits contained in the semi-desert lands shared by San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas were explored by various businessmen, who to calculate their contents and commercial possibilities took advantage of the boom in the issuance of federal concessions in the governments of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018). The latter, with the backing of the Chamber of Deputies, published a new Mining Law in 2014 to grant facilities to investors in the sector.
In October 2009, the Zacatecan company Pietro Sutti SA informed The Day the discovery of a mineral deposit “with high concentrations of lithium and potassium” susceptible to industrial exploitation.
These deposits, detailed the mining businessman Martín Sutti Courtade, are located in a polygon of more than 60 thousand hectares in the semi-desert shared by the municipalities of Salinas and Villa de Ramos, in San Luis Potosí, as well as Pánfilo Natera, Villa González and Villa de Cos, belonging to Zacatecas.
By February 2010, Sutti Courtade revealed that representatives of the Chinese corporate Citic Guoan Group had contacted him and expressed their interest in setting up a lithium battery factory in the municipality of Santo Domingo, in the west of San Luis Potosí.
In fact, before the Chinese company, the Korean LG was interested in a similar project, according to Martín Sutti Courtade, owner of the mining concessions where some of the properties with lithium are located.
The Citic Guoan Group project was to be financed “by a multinational consortium of Australian, English, Swedish and Catalan capital, with support from the government of San Luis Potosí and the Ministry of Economy”, but for unknown reasons it never materialized. Years later, the businessman died and the exploitation of the lithium salt flats had been forgotten. Up to now.
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