The site visit by Yongxing appears to be a step in the right direction for Pan Asia’s efforts to secure such a strategic partner. Yongxing is one of China’s biggest lepidolite miners and processors, with the outfit also considered one of the Asian nation’s lowest-cost producers of lithium carbonate from lepidolite.

Notably, Pan Asia drew attention to a recent energy metal initiation report from Chinese-based Soochow Securities that identified several low-cost lepidolite-based integrated lithium chemical producers, including Yongxing. According to the company, the RK project has similar lithium grades to the leading chemical producers identified in the report and is also positioned in a low-cost environment that lies in proximity to key input requirements such as labour, energy and reagents, as well as end markets.

The company’s tenement area at RK encloses three mining zones. The southernmost zone features the RK lithium prospect hosting a JORC-compliant mineral resource of 14.8 million tonnes at 0.45 per cent lithium oxide.

The northernmost zone holds the BT lithium prospect where an estimated exploration target of between 16 and 25 million tonnes grading 0.4 per cent to 0.7 per cent lithium oxide has been identified.

At KT, the newly-defined zone of lepidolite pegmatites has a bigger footprint than both the RK and BT prospects and could potentially lead to a substantial extension of the mineralised envelope and a significant boost to resource tonnage.

Thailand is Southeast Asia’s biggest EV producer, with the likes of Mercedes and BYD making the country its manufacturing home. And Pan Asia could blossom into an influential player in the region’s lithium-ion battery supply chain if interest from prominent Chinese lithium processors such as Yongxing becomes set in stone.

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