Pan American Lithium Changes Name, Shifts Focus to Potash

Pan American Lithium Corp. (TSXV:PL,OTCBB:PALTF) announced that as of November 26, it has officially shifted its focus to developing and commercializing the potash located in its Chilean brine salars. To reflect that change, the company has changed its name to First Potash Corp. and will trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol FSP and on the OTC Bulletin Board under the symbol SALTF; these changes are also effective November 26.

As quoted in the press release:

The Company’s management team decided to shift the Company’s emphasis to commercialize potash, an essential ingredient in fertilizer, from lithium for several reasons.

The first was in response to recent events in the Chilean mining sector. The Chilean government awarded a lithium concession to Sociedad Quimica y Minera in September of this year but subsequently cancelled this contract in the face of opposition from the Chilean congress and legal challenges from other parties with lithium properties in the country. These events have made the legal path towards the commercialization of lithium less clear than ever. The Company is encouraged that there are parties leading the charge to have more stakeholders included in the lithium commercialization process, including Li3 Energy, Inc. in conjunction with one of its investors, POSCAN, the Canadian subsidiary of the Korean multi-industrial conglomerate, which also owns 18% of the Company.

The second reason the Company is changing its focus is because the management team of the Company believes the long-term fundamentals of potash are very attractive, as potash is a major component of fertilizers. The Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nationals published an estimate in 2010 that by the year 2050 there will be close to 9.3 billion people on earth, an increase of more than 2 billion people. For this reason and others, the management team of the Company believes that there will be a very strong, long-term demand for fertilizer materials throughout the world.

Click here to read the full Pan American Lithium Corp. (TSXV:PL,OTCBB:PALTF) press release.