CleanTech Lithium PLC announced operations update with brine assays received from the first drill hole at the Francisco Basin project. Amaiden JORC Inferred resource estimate for the project is expected to be reported in the near-term. Francisco Basin is located within 100km of the Company´s more advanced Laguna Verde project.

The project has excellent infrastructure with road access to the site and existing power and water supply lines traversing the project area. There has previously been no lithium exploration drill hole completed at the project. Surface sampling indicated elevated lithium concentrations and a geophysics program was undertaken which generated a low resistivity target zone of 10 - 15km, which was interpreted to be a hypersaline sub-surface aquifer.

A resource drill programme consisting of 4 wells was designed to test the target zone. The hole design is based on wide diameter bores with metal casing installed in the upper 20 metres to close off a fresh shallow aquifer and stabilise the hole, and then a thick PVC casing is installed which is slotted over the depth interval of the brine aquifer. This is a hole design which is suitable for the high-volume pump tests required for final feasibility level hydrogeological modelling, and ultimately for conversion to production bores in a commercial stage operation.

Hole FB01 was completed to 338m encountering a brine aquifer from 99m to 303m, or an aquifer thickness of 204m. The hole was cased and developed with samples collected every 6 metres, which were then delivered to ALS Chile. The lithium grades of the 34 samples from FB01 ranged from 255 to 324mg/L, with an average grade of 305mg/L, as presented in Table 1 below.

These results will form the basis for a maiden JORC Inferred resource estimate based on a 2.5km radius around FB01 which will be released in the near term.