Pan Asia says Rosario is interpreted as highly prospective yet significantly underexplored and supports the company’s recently expanded Chilean lithium holdings. Its objective remains to be a lower third of the cost curve battery metals provider and it believes the new project in an infrastructure-rich, low-cost environment complements that mandate.

Pan Asia Metals chairman and managing director Paul Lock said: “Rosario represents a tremendous opportunity to position Pan Asia with a high-grade, low-cost copper project. We view copper as an equally important metal with lithium in the global electrification transition, the supply-demand dynamics are compelling with deficits projected due to declining production and grades, and a lack of new discoveries. Importantly, Rosario is not a pivot, the project is strategic, has the right fundamentals and offers Pan Asia strategic options.”

The mineralised porphyries at the nearby El Salvador mine intrude the same rocks that host mineralisation at Rosario and the company is looking to see if there might be a genetic link between the Rosario mineralisation and the El Salvador project.

Pan Asian recently secured an extensive lithium landholding in Chile at its Tama Atacama brine project at the start of this year. After a further 303 square kilometres was granted earlier this month, the company’s total landholding at the site is now more than 1200 km sq.

The project lies north of Chile’s lithium chemical refining hub in Antofagasta and has access to rail and road. The move additionally secures the company’s presence in one of South America’s biggest and most strategically important lithium brine regions.

Late last year changes to the Chilean Mining code modified the extension of exploration concessions to four years, with the potential for an additional four-year renewal – replacing the old two-plus-two system. Consequently, the newly granted exploration concessions across Chile will now remain valid for 4 years, providing a longer horizon for exploration and development at Pan Asia’s prospective holdings.

Plans are already in place for a drill campaign aimed at identifying lithium-bearing aquifers at depth. If identified, management has its sights set on defining an initial mineral resource here as soon as the year-end.

Pan Asia also has three substantial lepidolite-hosted lithium prospects in southern Thailand at its Reung Kiet project, which it says is strategically positioned to support Southeast Asia’s burgeoning lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing hubs.

For now however it is all about copper as Pan Asia seeks to explore Rosario. The presence of historical workings at the site is encouraging as the old-timers rarely mined by hand in harsh environments if they were not getting some colour – just how much colour is still there remains to be seen however 73 rocks chips with colour is a pretty good start.

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