Pilot plant commissioned to aid offtake discussions

In its announcement yesterday, our lithium exploration Investment Latin Resources (ASX: LRS) said it is commissioning a pilot plant to produce samples of lithium concentrate from its project in Brazil.

LRS confirmed that the Dense Media Separation (DMS) pilot plant would allow the company to provide a representative lithium concentrate product from its project to potential offtake customers.

More interestingly, LRS also confirmed that it has “held preliminary discussions with several international car and battery manufacturers as well as leading lithium trading houses with respect to future supply of its lithium product”.

We suspect the decision to build out a pilot plant comes as a response to the demand LRS is seeing from potential customers.

We are not surprised by the interest in LRS’s product given the comments made by Kent Masters (CEO of the world’s largest publicly traded lithium producer - Albemarle), who expects lithium supply to remain tight for up to seven to eight years.

We are especially pleased that the company is making such quick progress given it has only been around six months since first hitting spodumene at its Brazilian lithium project.