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Argentina Lithium & Energy (TSX-V: LIT)(OTC: PNXLF) CEO Niko Cacos on Delineating Potential Extent of Conductive Brine Aquifers at Rincon West
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Argentina Lithium & Energy, Mr. Niko Cacos. Niko, great to have you back on as always. How are you today, sir?
Niko Cacos: I'm doing very well, Gerardo. Always a pleasure to be on your program.
Gerardo Del Real: Let's get right into it. We have some choppy markets in the overall indices. The resource space is teetering back and forth between the sell in May crowd and those that are positioning for the next leg higher. As it relates to the lithium space, the lithium sector is one of the most exciting megatrends that I've been able to be a part of in quite some time, and you just announced the completion of geophysical surveys at the Rincon West property. I want to talk about those because I know you're excited by the results.
Niko Cacos: Yeah. Yes, we are. And indeed, the lithium space is a very exciting space. As we all know from reading in our daily news, electrification is the way the future. And having carbon-free ways of generating electricity, that really means that we need to have good batteries to run our cars or computers and so forth, and the demand seems to be going really through the roof. It's a really sustained, long-term trend.
The markets will do what the markets do. We're in the business of the lithium business here, and we see a very, very bullish future. We spent the last year at Argentina Lithium accumulating and building up some really prospective projects in the Lithium Triangle of Argentina, which is probably one of the best places to make new lithium discoveries at the most unexplored areas of the world.
And I think we have positioned Argentina Lithium now to be one of the largest landholders in that area. And with the news that we put out just the other day, it's very exciting because finally, we... It was really the kickoff of our exploration program. And the new geophysical survey indicates that in the Rincon West salar, we are seeing using geophysical, it's called transient electromagnetic sounding. It's a very fancy word. It's an advanced technique, actually, that's used to help explore and detect lithium salars. And we're seeing that there's aquifers and the potential for lithium is much greater than what we initially thought, and that's actually very, very exciting for us and our shareholders.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, it's exciting too, because this Rincon West project, it's in the right address, right? It's west of the adjacent Rincon project, which is owned by Rio Tinto, and that's not a bad neighborhood to be in, right?
Niko Cacos: No, not in bad neighborhood at all. In fact, there's only a couple of players in this whole salar. There's us, there's Rio Tinto with Rincon. And by the way, Rio Tinto paid close to $1 billion just this last December to acquire the Rincon. So, they have a big resource. And the other company there is Argosy Minerals, and they also have a resource here. So, we know that this salar has lithium in within it. And our work right now has indicated, we just announced the geophysical survey, basically increased the odds that, "Yeah. Okay. We're in the right..." Not just in the right address, there are also indications that there could be... There is definitely aquifers and brines underneath our project, and it seems like they may contain lithium. The only way we can confirm that is with drilling, and that drilling program is about to begin in the next couple of weeks and we're actually super excited about that.
Gerardo Del Real: Do you have an idea of the amount of drilling that you're going to conduct, Niko?
Niko Cacos: Yes. We're going to start off with five drill holes. There will be deep drill holes, 300-400 meters, and then we'll be doing testing of the aquifers that we intersect, and testing them to see how much lithium content is in there.
Gerardo Del Real: Exciting times, anything else to add?
Niko Cacos: No. I think this is really exciting, and I think we're going to be really busy with the drill program. Within, like I said, the lithium triangle in Argentina, probably the world's most prospective region for making new lithium discoveries. And we're getting a lot of interest from a lot of companies; Asia, North America, and Europe. It's a dream situation for us. And right now, I think just hold onto your hat. If we find some lithium that we announce over the next coming weeks, I think we can be off the races here.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's make it a point to have you back on here in the next coming weeks and see what you find. Thank you again for your time, Niko. Always appreciated.
Niko Cacos: I look forward to it. Thank you.
Gerardo Del Real: All right. Chat soon. Good luck out there.