Peru's Falchani Lithium Project Phase 1 Investment Raised to US$834 Million

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 16, American Lithium's subsidiary Macusani Yellowcake announced the latest development plan for the Falchani lithium project during Expomina 2026. The required investment for Phase 1 of the project has been raised from approximately US$625 million to US$834 million, with an initial planned annual production of 25,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate, and plans to maintain this production level for the first 4 production years. Thereafter, the project plans to increase annual production capacity to 44,000 tonnes through reinvestment, and further expand to 100,000 tonnes in Phase 3.

Falchani is located in the Puno Region of Peru, with a project area of approximately 27,000 hectares. Currently, only about 37% of the area has been drilled, and sections such as Quelccaya have yet to be systematically explored. The company disclosed that approximately US$90 million has been invested to date in drilling and technical studies, with an average lithium grade of approximately 3,000 ppm and current resources of approximately 9.5 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent.

The project's current focus remains on further converting resources into reserves. Macusani Yellowcake is awaiting approval from the General Directorate of Mining Environmental Affairs of Peru's Ministry of Energy and Mines for the semi-detailed environmental impact study for exploration, and plans to complete rectification of 6 comments from the National Water Authority within two months. After obtaining the relevant permits, the company plans to launch a 6-month diamond drilling program with 320 drilling platforms.

According to the current timetable, the company plans to submit the environmental impact assessment for the mining stage by the end of 2027, and aims to obtain final approval in the third to fourth quarter of 2028. The previous legal dispute involving 32 mining concessions ended in 2025, with Peru's Supreme Court ultimately confirming Macusani Yellowcake's ownership of the relevant mining concessions.

Metallurgical validation for the Falchani project is also progressing in parallel. On September 16, American Lithium announced that the Falchani pilot plant in Lima has completed installation of all systems and commenced operation. The core processes include impurity removal, controlled cooling, pre-neutralization, neutralization, crystallization, centrifugal separation, and consumable reaction management. Recent semi-continuous tests achieved an average lithium extraction rate of 88.7%, ranging from 88.0% to 89.9%, higher than the 80% recovery rate used in the 2024 preliminary economic assessment.

In the next phase, the pilot plant will operate continuously for at least 3 months, and is expected to process 6–10 tonnes of Falchani mineralized material to verify the stability of the complete process under continuous conditions. The company stated that the pilot results will be used directly for the subsequent feasibility study and will continue to validate the battery-grade lithium carbonate product pathway; current test results show that the project can produce battery-grade lithium carbonate with a purity exceeding 99.5%.