Pure Energy Minerals Limited (“Pure Energy”) is a public company incorporated under the laws of British Columbia.
Its primary project is the Clayton Valley Lithium Brine Project (the “CV Project”).
Pure Energy Minerals Ltd. entered into an Earn-In Agreement with Schlumberger Technology Corp., a subsidiary of SLB (formerly Schlumberger Limited), dated May 1, 2019 whereby the Company has granted SLB an option, in favour of SLB, to acquire all of the Company’s interests in the CV Project (the “Option”).
Upon completion of all earn-in terms, SLB may take ownership of the CV project claims and the Company will receive a 3% net smelter return (“NSR”) royalty payable on all commodities extracted from the project, net of advance royalty payments mad by the Company and any underlying existing royalties.
Under the terms of the Agreement, SLB is the operator of the CV Project and is responsible for all costs associated with the project and Pilot Plant.
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Summary:
Clayton Valley is in the Basin and Range Province in southern Nevada and is an internally drained, fault-bounded and closed basin. Basin-filling strata, asymmetrically thicker to the east, compose the aquifer system which hosts and produces the lithium-rich brine. Multiple wetting and drying periods during the Pleistocene resulted in the formation of lacustrine deposits, salt beds, and lithium-rich brines in the basin. Except for the freshwater aquifers occurring in alluvial fans composed of coarse-grained sediments on the higher elevation flanks of mountain fronts, the primary aquifer system within the Clayton Valley basin, and in particular the area of the Resource Estimate, is composed of layered sequences of unconsolidated to semi-consolidated Quaternary playa (ephemeral lake) sediments and volcanic ash units. The playa deposits are predominantly fine grained, clastic sediments with some salt deposits and localized sand and gravel facies. Below these deposits is a basal conglomerate sequence, predominantly matrix supported pebble conglomerate, overlying bedrock composed of brecciated meta-siltstones and sandstones with partially silicified carbonates. Steeply dipping, normal faults largely control the basin geometry. Fault scarps on the east side of the valley expose tuffaceous and lacustrine sediments (claystones and siltstones). Exposed bedding of older sedimentary units in this area dips gently toward the basin center.
The deposit type for the Project is a continental, mineral-enriched brine aquifer within a hydrographically closed basin (endorheic basin). The lithium resource is hosted as a solute in a predominantly sodium chloride brine. Dissolved constituents in the brine, such as lithium, originate from multiple processes of mineral dissolution and precipitation, remobilization, geothermal circulation, and evaporation occurring in the basin aquifer.
As such, the term ‘mineralization’ is not wholly relevant, as the brine is mobile and can be affected by pumping of groundwater (for example from the adjacent Albemarle property), and by local hydrogeological variations (e.g. localized freshwater lenses in near-surface gravel deposits being affected by rainfall, etc.).
However, as discussed in previous Technical Reports for the Clayton Valley area (Harrop, 2009; Keast, 2011), lithium is present in the basin not only as a solute, but also within the solid matrix that forms the basin infill deposits within the graben structures, particularly within the finer clay and silt fractions. Based on the isotopic signature of the lithium within the brines, there is a strong likelihood that exchange reactions occur between the solid matrix materials in the clastic basin and the brines, and therefore, it is possible that lithium is released from the solid phase into the aqueous phase and hence acts to supplement the resource. Currently, there are insufficient data to confirm this hypothesis, and the resource model considers only the brine encountered in porosity during drilling and pumping activities. Future work may be conducted that allows for expansion of the resource to include some portion of the solid material within the basin.