American Lithium wins legal battle over Peruvian uranium concessions

[Ben Graham]

American Lithium (TSXV: LI) surged by nearly 20% on Thursday after winning a legal battle in Peru that maintained its ownership of 32 uranium concessions that have been in dispute for years.

A Peruvian judiciary court announced earlier that the petitions filed by the Ministry of Energy and Mines in December 2023 challenging the disputed concessions had been unanimously rejected, confirming their title of ownership to Macusani Yellowcake, the company’s Peruvian subsidiary.

According to the ruling, the Supreme Court rejected hearing the petitions filed by Peru’s INGEMMET, its scientific and management agency that is also part of the mining ministry MINEM, on the grounds of being “unfair, inadmissible and unacceptable.”

From the outset, the company maintained that there were no grounds for the Supreme Court to assume jurisdiction, a position that was consistently upheld, American Lithium stated in a press release. The decision, which its executive chairman Andrew Bowering calls a “significant development”, ends what it considers to be an “unnecessary legal process” initiated seven years ago by INGEMMET.

“It is important to re-emphasize that at no point did the company lose title to the 32 concessions under dispute. We can now focus on advancing these high-quality projects without this uncertainty,” Bowering said in the release.

America Lithium rose by double digits on the legal win, up 17.5% to C$0.47 a share by 11 a.m. in Toronto. Earlier, it hit a five-month high of C$0.48 apiece. The company has a market capitalization of C$119 million ($86.5m).

Large uranium project

The disputed concessions form part of American Lithium’s Macusani project, which the Vancouver-based miner considers to be one of the world’s largest and lowest-cost uranium developments.

A preliminary economic assessment outlined a 10-year mine at Macusani producing approximately 70 million lb. of uranium oxide (U₃O₈) from five near-surface deposits. Its post-tax net present value (at 8% discount) is estimated at $603 million, with an internal rate of return of 40.6% and 1.8-year payback. The initial capital cost is $300 million.

The PEA is based on a total defined resource of 95.2 million indicated tonnes grading 248 parts per million U₃O₈, containing 51.9 million lb. U₃O₈, and 130 million inferred tonnes grading 251 ppm for 72.1 million lb. U₃O₈.

American Lithium acquired Macusani as part of its merger with Plateau Energy Metals in 2021. The latter had been working on the project since 2007 and produced the PEA report in late 2018. Following the merger, the company intended to spin out its uranium assets, but that plan was put on hold due to market conditions.