OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 12/09/14 -- Stria Lithium Inc. (TXS VENTURE: SRA) ("Stria" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that following the completion of positive bench scale testing of its proprietary, environmentally sustainable lithium ore processing technologies, the Company has moved into the design stage for its limited production pilot plant.
Company President and Chief Operating Officer Julien Davy said the pilot plant will be designed to produce up to 140 kg per month of lithium compound over a six month period, commencing in early 2015, with the aim of providing potential customers with sufficient 99.99% purity materials for validating process economics and product quality.
Mr. Davy said the pilot plant will be constructed at the Grafoid Global Technology Centre in Kingston, Ontario.
"As a key member of the Grafoid, Focus Graphite battery materials development business platform, Stria completes a potential North American supply solution to both domestic and international battery manufacturers," Mr. Davy said.
"And, as a mineral mining and technology supplier group, our battery platform is unique in the world," he added.
Stria Lithium's business strategy is based upon meeting three key milestones for success. They are: time to market; meeting universal standards for environmental sustainability, and; setting market prices for lithium concentrates.
Stria targets clean energy customers in the automotive, industrial, medical, motorsports, marine, military, avionics and energy storage battery system sectors - the prime movers of demand for the foreseeable future.
With management backgrounds in geological sciences, business development and process engineering, Stria is the sole proprietor of two exploration properties intended to feed its pilot plant development with raw material - the Pontax hard-rock lithium project in Northern Quebec and the Willcox brine lithium project in southeastern Arizona.
Canadian Government Participation
Mr. Davy said the Company's development advances in producing low-cost, high-purity Li-metal, Li-carbonate and Li-hydroxide products were made possible, in part, by a $137,700 funding commitment from the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program ("IRAP").
The National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) is Canada's premier innovation assistance program for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It is a vital component of the NRC and a cornerstone in Canada's innovation system, regarded worldwide as one of the best programs of its kind.
Under the terms of financial commitment announced on November 12, 2014, IRAP will reimburse Stria for salaries paid to scientists and technical staff and for expenses directly related to process development.
Non-Brokered Private Placement
The Company is pleased to announce its private placement offering of non flow-through and flow-through units will remain open until December 29, 2014.
On October 30, 2014, Stria Lithium announced the close of its first tranche of a non-brokered private placement offering of up to $1,000,000.
The total private placement consisted of the sale of up to 2,666,667 non flow-through units (the "Units") at a price of $0.15 per Unit for gross proceeds of $400,000 and up to 3,157,895 flow-through units (the "Flow-Through Units") at a price of $0.19 per Flow-Through Unit for proceeds of up to $600,000.
Each Unit consists of one (1) common share of the Company and one (1) warrant (a "Warrant"). Each Flow-Through Unit consists of one (1) flow-through common share of the Company and one (1) Warrant. Each Warrant entitles the holder to acquire one (1) additional common share of the Company at a price of $0.35 for a period of 24 months from closing.
The closing of the first tranche of the non flow-through portion of the Offering realized gross proceeds of $26,650.05 from the issue of 177,667 Units. The closing of the first tranche of the flow-through portion of the Offering realized proceeds of $154,770.20 from the issue of 814,580 Flow-Through Units.
About Stria Lithium Inc.
Stria Lithium (TSX VENTURE: SRA) owns the Pontax spodumene lithium property in Northern Quebec and the Willcox brine lithium property in southeastern Arizona. As announced in January 2014, Stria is developing proprietary, in-house processing technologies for both projects with the purpose of reducing processing costs on an environmentally sustainable basis.
Stria's technologies, based on recovering lithium metal directly from ore and from brine liquids, will be more efficient, will require fewer controls, less chemistry and require less energy from compact facilities designed to enable easy automation.
Forward Looking Statement - Disclaimer
This news release may contain forward-looking statements, being statements which are not historical facts, and discussions of future plans and objectives. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove accurate. Such statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and future events to differ materially from those anticipated or projected. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations are in our documents filed from time to time with the TSX Venture Exchange and provincial securities regulators, most of which are available at www.sedar.com.
Contacts:
Stria Lithium Inc.
Mr. Julien Davy
President and COO
613-241-4040
jdavy@strialithium.com
