CleanTech Lithium (AIM:CTL), the AIM-listed lithium explorer and developer, has signed option agreements to acquire 100% of two mining properties, Genoveva and Sal de Litio 1, on the Salar de Antofalla in Argentina.
The properties sit roughly 80km from CleanTech Lithium's flagship Laguna Verde project in Chile, and the company said the addition enhances its district-scale exploration and development strategy even as Laguna Verde remains its main focus.
The Argentine properties are adjacent to an exploration project held by Albemarle, the world's largest lithium producer, which reported a total resource estimate of 9.5 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) in its 2025 annual report, including a measured and indicated resource with a lithium grade of 406 mg/L.
CleanTech Lithium chief executive Ignacio Mehech previously served as Albemarle's vice president of external affairs for Latin America, with direct involvement in that company's Antofalla project between 2021 and early 2024.
A geophysical survey already completed on the Genoveva property points to a brine aquifer more than 500 metres thick, which the company's technical team says justifies further exploration given the site's position next to an established major resource.
CleanTech Lithium, through its subsidiary CleanTech Lithium, executed the option agreements on 6 October, following due diligence carried out by Beretta Godoy, a natural resources law firm in Argentina.
The company will pay US$525,000 over the first year of the agreements, with a further US$1.4 million due between October 2027 and May 2031; it said the first-year payments will be funded from existing cash resources.
The next step is a drill programme estimated to cost roughly US$500,000, targeting a maiden resource estimate for the project during 2027, subject to available funding; permitting for drilling in Argentina typically takes roughly six months, though the project's elevation allows for year-round exploration.
"Salar de Antofalla is the largest undeveloped Salar in Argentina, and is strategically located very close to our flagship Laguna Verde Project, as well as to Viento Andino," Mehech said, adding that the three projects could share development synergies and potentially a centralised conversion facility in Copiapó.
The Antofalla acquisition adds a third project to a Chilean and Argentine cluster centred on Laguna Verde, where CleanTech Lithium completed a pre-feasibility study defining a maiden probable ore reserve of 378,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, and where ratification of its 40-year Special Lithium Operating Contract remains under review by Chile's Comptroller General's Office.