Pan Asia Metals (ASX: PAM) has roused interest in its RK lepidolite-hosted lithium project in Thailand, with efforts to nail down a strategic partner for the project’s development attracting leading Chinese lepidolite processor and lithium chemical producer, Yongxing Special Materials Technology, to a site visit.
The company’s memorandum of understanding (MoU) partner, IRPC Public, also attended the trip as management explores the possibility of a three-way collaboration to advance the project. It noted that Yongxing’s visit demonstrates the strategic importance of RK’s geographic positioning in supporting Southeast Asia’s burgeoning lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing hub.
Pan Asia Metals hosted representatives from leading lithium chemical producer Yongxing at its RK lithium project in Thailand.
More specifically, Pan Asia is looking to leading Chinese lepidolite processors as potential strategic and technology partners to employ their prowess in lepidolite and lithium chemical processing in the region.
In July last year, the company entered the non-binding MoU with Thai integrated petrochemical business, IRPC, to gauge the potential for producing components for the lithium-ion battery supply chain in Thailand. The duo is assessing the viability of developing a mining operation at RK, which produces a lithium oxide concentrate that feeds into a conversion facility at IRPC’s industrial zone in the Rayong Province of Thailand to yield a lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) chemical product.
The pairing is also considering the prospects for a cathode active material (CAM) facility at IRPC’s industrial zone, potentially with a technology knowledge partner, to produce a CAM product for use in lithium-ion batteries. In turn, Pan Asia says it is in discussions with several potential partners boasting expertise in lithium chemical manufacturing as the company tests the waters of a three-way agreement that involves mining at its RK tenure and downstream processing at IRPC’s facilities.
PAM hosted IRPC and Yongxing on a comprehensive site visit last week, focusing on the RK and BT lithium prospects, and the potential of the newly defined and rapidly advancing KT lithium prospect. The site visit demonstrates the interest PAM’s RK Lithium Project is generating and the importance of the Project’s strategic positioning in Southeast Asia and particularly Thailand, the fourth-largest EV producer in East Asia.
Pan Asia Metals managing director Paul Lock
The company’s chief geologist and technical director David Hobby hosted the site visit with a focus on inspecting the drill core and fieldwork results from the RK, BT and KT lithium prospects found at the project. Hobby also confirmed that the central area of the KT prospect contains a pegmatite swarm 1.5km long and 500m wide, which remains open along strike.
Individual pegmatite dykes containing abundant lepidolite and/or muscovite were interpreted to extend up to 20m width.
The site visit by Yongxing appears to be a step in the right direction for Pan Asia’s efforts to secure such a strategic partner. Yongxing is one of China’s biggest lepidolite miners and processors, with the outfit also considered one of the Asian nation’s lowest-cost producers of lithium carbonate from lepidolite.
Notably, Pan Asia drew attention to a recent energy metal initiation report from Chinese-based Soochow Securities that identified several low-cost lepidolite-based integrated lithium chemical producers, including Yongxing. According to the company, the RK project has similar lithium grades to the leading chemical producers identified in the report and is also positioned in a low-cost environment that lies in proximity to key input requirements such as labour, energy and reagents, as well as end markets.
The company’s tenement area at RK encloses three mining zones. The southernmost zone features the RK lithium prospect hosting a JORC-compliant mineral resource of 14.8 million tonnes at 0.45 per cent lithium oxide.
The northernmost zone holds the BT lithium prospect where an estimated exploration target of between 16 and 25 million tonnes grading 0.4 per cent to 0.7 per cent lithium oxide has been identified.
At KT, the newly defined zone of lepidolite pegmatites has a bigger footprint than both the RK and BT prospects and could potentially lead to a substantial extension of the mineralised envelope and a significant boost to resource tonnage.
Thailand is Southeast Asia’s biggest EV producer, with the likes of Mercedes and BYD making the country its manufacturing home. And Pan Asia could blossom into an influential player in the region’s lithium-ion battery supply chain if interest from prominent Chinese lithium processors such as Yongxing becomes set in stone.
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