Proactive Investors - CleanTech Lithium PLC (LON:CTL) has gained ground over the past year, growing its assets and carrying out several successful fundraising rounds.
Net assets totalled £17.3mln at the year-end, up from £3.5mln in late 2021, the AIM-listed exploration company noted in its full-year results.
Cash sat at £12.4mln meanwhile, following a successful £5.6mln listing on the London Stock Exchange in March and an additional fundraise of £12.3mln in October.
Exploration and evaluation costs, CleanTech’s main expenditure, amounted to £4.5mln, with its Chile-based team increasing from just three to over 20 specialists throughout the year by December 2022.
"The company has advanced considerably in the past year,” executive chairman Steve Kesler said.
“I am looking forward, now in an executive capacity, to be working with the chief executive Aldo Boitano and his management team to accelerate the path to commercial lithium production.”
CleanTech has three earmarked lithium projects in Laguna Verde, Francisco Basin and Llamara in Chile, where it aims to produce battery-grade metals for the electric vehicle (EV) market.
CleanTech’s first exploratory drilling began at the Llamara site in the second quarter of this year, after licences were approved in the first.
Further resource drilling is set to be completed at Laguna Verde and Francisco Basin this quarter meanwhile, with CleanTech’s environmentally sustainable direct lithium extraction pilot plant due to produce one tonne per month by midway through the third quarter.
Looking ahead, CleanTech also reiterated its plan to list on the Australian Securities Exchange by the third quarter of 2023.