American Battery Technology Announces New Drill Program To Boost Tonopah Flats Lithium Project; 21.2M Tons Lithium Resource Identified; Prefeasibility Study Underway With Truth North Drilling And Barr Engineering; Plans 30K Ton/Year Lithium Hydroxide Refinery With Black & Veatch

American Battery Technology Company (NASDAQ:ABAT), an integrated critical battery materials company that is commercializing its technologies for both primary battery minerals manufacturing and secondary minerals lithium-ion battery recycling, has commenced a new drill program aimed to accelerate the commercialization of its Tonopah Flats Lithium Project (TFLP).

In April 2024, American Battery Technology Company (ABTC) published its Amended Initial Assessment, which concluded that the TFLP is one of the largest known lithium resources in the United States, containing approximately 21.2 million tons of economically accessible lithium (LCE), and that commercial quantities of battery grade lithium hydroxide could be manufactured at a production cost of $4,302/ton.

The next step in accelerating the commercialization of this resource is the completion and publication of a prefeasibility study (PFS). A critical operation of the PFS is performing this drill program to provide the geotechnical data to define the structural mine pit shape, to increase the resolution of the 3D resource model, and to add to the understanding of the high-grade continuity within the proposed pit.

This drill program also includes core sample collections which will be assayed and characterized to further define the resource to the previously unexplored southwest section of the claim block and to work to increase the size of the overall lithium resource.

The company has selected and engaged Truth North Drilling of Tonopah, Nevada for the core sample collections. Additionally, Barr Engineering, a nationally recognized, top-tier mining engineering firm has been engaged to support the company in the design and development of its 'mine plan of operation' and the publication of its PFS for the TFLP.

ABTC has already successfully manufactured battery grade lithium hydroxide material from its TFLP claystone resource utilizing its internally developed integrated demonstration-scale facility. ABTC has engaged one of the premier global construction firms, Black & Veatch, for the engineering, procurement, and construction of a 30,000 tonnes per year commercial-scale lithium hydroxide refinery to be constructed directly at the TFLP resource.

Throughout the world lithium products are generally manufactured from conventional feedstock resources, which include hard rock spodumene materials primarily from western Australia and lithium-rich brines primarily from South America, however, the U.S. does not have large quantities of these conventional resources. As a result, in order to significantly increase domestic-U.S. production of battery grade lithium products, ABTC has developed its own technologies to be able to access the lithium within unconventional lithium-rich claystone material that is found in central Nevada to manufacture these battery grade lithium materials in a low cost and low impact fashion.