Pursuit Minerals has signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s EcoPro Innovation for a proposed $40 million (A$58 million) investment and funding package to advance the Rio Grande Sur lithium project in Salta Province, Argentina. Under the proposal, EcoPro would acquire a 20 percent interest in Pursuit’s Argentine subsidiary, which holds the project, through a $20 million equity investment, leaving Pursuit with 80 percent and operational control.
EcoPro would also provide up to $20 million in advance funding, to be repaid through future lithium deliveries, and would secure offtake for the project’s entire initial production of 5,000 tonnes a year of lithium carbonate equivalent, with a 10 percent volume variation option held by Pursuit. The memorandum is non binding in relation to the proposed commercial arrangements, which remain subject to due diligence, definitive agreements and conditions precedent, with a deadline of December 31, 2027.
The approach lands days after Pursuit’s November 6 prefeasibility study addendum, which lifted the probable ore reserve to 438,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, about 250 percent higher than before, and mapped a staged expansion from 5,000 to 17,500 tonnes a year. The resource stands at 1.264 million tonnes at 424 milligrams per litre of lithium, split between 705,000 tonnes indicated and 559,000 tonnes inferred.
The funding gap is the context. Stage one capital costs are $156.63 million, and Pursuit must separately secure up to $120 million in senior secured project debt. EcoPro’s package, if it converts to definitive agreements, covers the equity and offtake legs of that structure and brings a cathode materials group inside the project; until it converts, the project has no binding financing or sales agreements in place.