Avalon Raises $375,000, Plans Drilling in Early 2017

Friday December 23 2016 – News Release – Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. (TSX:AVL,OTCQX:AVLNF) has completed a non-brokered private placement consisting of 2.5 million flow-through shares at a price of 15 cents per share for gross proceeds of $375,000.
In conjunction with this private placement, Avalon paid finder’s fees of $22,500 and issued 150,000 non-transferrable finder’s warrants, with each finder’s warrant being exercisable to acquire one common share of the Company at a price of $0.15 for a period of 24 months from today. Pursuant to Canadian securities laws, the securities issuable under this private placement are subject to a hold period which expires on April 24, 2017. The proceeds from this offering will be used primarily to advance the Company’s Separation Rapids lithium project, including as described below.
Avalon is planning a drilling program for early 2017 with the main goals of expanding the existing resource and exploring untested extensions to the resource along strike and to depth. This will include testing other lithium sub-zones that were not fully explored historically when the focus was on defining a resource of the lithium mineral petalite for glass-ceramics markets. One such sub-zone open for expansion to the east of the petalite resource contains lepidolite, a lithium-rubidium mica typically containing approximately 8% Li2O (lithium oxide), compared to the 4.0 – 4.5% Li2O typically contained in petalite. Testwork toward defining a flowsheet for efficiently extracting lithium and rubidium chemical products from a lepidolite mineral concentrate has already been initiated at an Australian laboratory.
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Work continues on enhancing the performance of the petalite flotation process, where opportunities to reduce reagent consumptions are being investigated. Work on optimizing the lithium hydroxide production process is also progressing. Samples of high purity (>99.5%) lithium hydroxide crystals produced in the recent test programs have been sent to a major Canadian research facility for characterization and evaluation for use as a feed for lithium ion battery cathode material. In addition, Avalon continues to evaluate processes for recovery of valuable by-products, including tantalum and high-purity silica.
Don Bubar, Avalon’s President and CEO, comments: “I am pleased with the progress we are making with the Separation Rapids Project following the completion of a positive Preliminary Economic Assessment in September. In addition to advancing our resource modelling and process flowsheet development, we continue to make progress on developing the markets for our products, environmental assessment work, infrastructure alternatives and community relationships. An appropriate site for the proposed demonstration plant has also been identified. Demand for new supply sources of lithium continues to grow rapidly along with the energy storage market, and Avalon remains well-positioned to bring a new supply of lithium to the market within the next three years.”
The technical information included in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Donald S. Bubar, P. Geo., President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company who is a Qualified Person under NI 43-101.
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