Century Lithium Corp. (TSX-V:LCE, OTCQX:CYDVF) earlier this week unveiled plans for a standalone 300-ton-per-day chlor-alkali plant aimed at addressing what the company sees as a supply gap in the western United States.
CEO Bill Willoughby told Proactive that the proposed operation would be separate from the plant incorporated into Century Lithium's feasibility study for Angel Island, although the company would draw on knowledge gained through that work.
Proactive: You are unveiling an opportunity here to build a commercial plant. Tell me first a little bit about the plant and the decision-making behind going this route.
Bill Willoughby: What we plan to do is build a standalone 300-ton-per-day chlor-alkali plant. It is not the same plant that is in our feasibility study for Angel Island, but we learned a lot from our feasibility study work for Angel Island, which is built around the chlor-alkali process, where we take a salt solution, electrolyze it and break it apart into reagents, which are hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, which we need to run that process.
In the course of our work on our feasibility study, we found that there's a huge supply gap in the western United States. Virtually three small chlor-alkali plants exist on the West Coast, and the rest are on the Gulf Coast of Texas. So you have a transportation issue; there's a void. We see an opportunity where we can fill that void with a merchant plant.
Based on our own internal studies, looking at logistics, transportation and infrastructure, we feel we've come up with an idea for a standalone chlor-alkali plant which can be an income generator and have a relatively short development timeframe.
One of the benefits of this plant is that we've looked for better than a year at different locations in the western US. We settled on two that are prospective, and we are close to finalizing the decision on one, we hope.
It has good proximity to rail. By infrastructure, we mean rail, natural gas and electrical power connections, and also being in proximity to a workforce so that we don't have to build a man camp and develop a remote location for it. So we see a lot of cost advantages there and a good path forward to make this a standalone income-generating project by itself.
Proactive: The two states that you mentioned, Nevada and Utah, are both well known for what you're trying to do, and the need for it is visible. You've obviously talked to players within both of those states about the importance of a plant like this, especially as a revenue generator as well.
Bill Willoughby: Exactly. We've actually got eight memoranda of understanding, MOUs, signed at this point. They're non-binding, but they indicate a need for us and a market that exists there. For the plant that we plan, it would be fully subscribed if we land these MOUs as binding. So that's a positive sign.
Proactive: Bill, what's the timeline surrounding this? When do you hope to have a decision made, and what's the process of building something like this?
Bill Willoughby: We're looking at a site that has existing infrastructure to it in the first place. That's more easily permitted than going onto federal land and working with a greenfield site.
So we feel that we could be working towards a construction decision on this within under a year and that the permitting should be relatively straightforward.
I want to emphasize that we're taking a part of the process, the chlor-alkali plant, which in itself is very low risk. By low risk, I mean the technology exists. We know what the capital and operating costs of it are. All of that we developed for the feasibility study for Angel Island, but we also now understand it as a standalone operation.
We're looking for a site that has good infrastructure, and that goes all the way to operating personnel and being able to support the supplies of a chemical operation like this.
Quotes have been lightly edited for style and clarity
