- Large Argentine reserves in Lithium Triangle
- Investor friendly regulatory environment
- Favorable drilling results of 250 mg per liter obtained near Marifil claim
It may be facing some tough times presently, but there is no need to cry for Argentina, for this is a country with a GDP of $626 billion, according to the latest IMF data – not much less than Saudi Arabia or Switzerland. It is also home to extensive deposits of lithium. The U.S. Geological Survey puts the country’s reserves at two million metric tons (tonnes), the fourth largest in the world after Chile, China and Australia. Estimates by Argentine government officials are even rosier. “Argentina has over 650 million tonnes of lithium in known salars,” says one, quite enough to satisfy present global demand for about 300 years (http://nnw.fm/0TRnw). Some of that demand could likely be met with lithium from claims held by Marifil Mines Ltd. (TSX.V: MFM) (OTC: MFMLF). The junior Canadian explorer holds lithium interests in Catamarca province, in the same geologic and mining region that hosts FMC’s world-renowned Hombre Muerto mine.
Despite its economic woes (the country has asked the IMF for $50 billion), Argentina is moving ahead with plans to create an inviting regulatory environment for investors in the lithium industry. The new administration, installed since the inauguration of President Mauricio Macri in 2015, has lowered corporate income tax to 30 percent from 35 percent; in 2020, it will be reduced further to 25 percent. In addition, export taxes on minerals have been eliminated and so have taxes on mining equipment and parts (http://nnw.fm/vg7iN).
Marifil’s holdings span 15,267 hectares (59 square miles) and include its recently acquired Ratones and Fraile claims, as well as two lithium mine rights covering the southern portions of the Carachi Pampa salar in the Province of Catamarca, one of which is contingent on receiving a clean title report. Prospects look good. Another miner working to the north on the same salar has announced favorable drilling results with significant lithium assay runs of 250 mg per liter. Marifil is now reviving an exploration program that was undertaken in Salta and Catamarca provinces in 2009. The program staked 12 properties covering some 61,500 hectares (237 square miles) and generated a large proprietary geologic and geochemical database that now provides the basis for Marifil’s lithium exploration program.
Marifil’s interests also include the Las Aguilas nickel-copper-cobalt deposit property, with more than four contiguous patented mining claims in the San Luis province of Argentina. The Las Aguilas property, which is 100 percent owned by Marifil, is noted as having the only drilled cobalt resource in Argentina. Other noteworthy properties in the company’s portfolio include 150,647 hectares (582 square miles) of potash claims in Neuquen and Mendoza Provinces, Lago Fontana, a prospective polymetallic deposit with strong gold and silver values, in Chubut Province, and El Carmen, a hydrocarbon play in the oil fields of Chubut Province.
In addition, Marifil is exploring at San Roque property, in the southern Argentine Province of Rio Negro, near the Atlantic coast in a region of well-developed infrastructure. The San Roque claims contain a bulk tonnage sulfide deposit comprising minerals of gold, silver, lead, zinc and indium disseminated in tens of millions of tonnes of host volcanic rocks, as well as a newly discovered series of gold-bearing quartz veins. Exploration of this system of veins has just begun, with a series of trenches made to expose and better sample them. These gold-bearing veins exceed a kilometer in length and are generally in the one-to-three meter range of width. Marifil’s San Roque permanent mining rights are held by nine mineral tenures, three of which are now granted titles covering 95 patented mining claims that total 9,449 hectares (36.5 square miles) within the greater package of 42,321 hectares (163 square kilometers) of mineral exploration rights.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.MarifilMines.com
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