MGX Minerals Files N.I. 43-101 Technical Report for Sturgeon Lake Lithium Property

VANCOUVER, Oct. 4, 2016 /CNW/ – MGX Minerals (CSE:XMG) reports the Company has filed on SEDAR a National Instrument (N.I.) 43-101 technical report (the “Report”) for its Sturgeon Lake lithium property (“Sturgeon Lake”) located in west-central Alberta.

Sturgeon Lake consists of 15 contiguous Industrial and Metallic Mineral Permits encompassing 132,773.74 hectares. Excerpts from the Report include:

• The Sturgeon Lake oilfield represents a mature petroleum field. That is, in the early history of this oilfield (mid-1950’s), most wells started out pumping hundreds to thousands of barrels of petroleum products per day, which required little active pumping to extract. However, at present most of the wells produce excessive amounts of formation water in comparison to petroleum products due to increased pumping to generate crude oil. Based on compiled fluid data, a total of 73,178,693 m³ of liquid was pumped from Leduc Formation target wells in the Sturgeon Lake oilfield from 1961 to the end of 2010, of which 72% was classified as Devonian formation water (brine).
• A Qualified Personal site inspection on MGX’s Sturgeon Lake sub-property was completed by the senior author of this Report on July 27th 2016. Because the Li-brine occurs at a depth of approximately 2,500 m below surface, it was not possible to view ‘mineralization’ during the site inspection. Rather, several actively producing oil and gas wells and plants within the boundaries of the Property were observed, including: Canadian Natural Resources Limited Sturgeon Lake South Plant; Well CNRL Sturlks 07-11-069-22W5; Well CNRL Sturlks 08-11-069-22W5; and Well CNRL Sturlks 11-11-069-22W5. Annual production from these wells is 55-1,056 m3 oil, 32-134 e3m3 gas and 2,690-7,958 m3 water (to April 29th, 2016) illustrating the sheer volume of brine produced from these Devonian production wells.
• Government of Alberta studies documented that at least 25 wells with the Sturgeon Lake oilfield area have yielded anomalous concentrations of lithium in formation water samples from the Beaverhill Lake and/or Woodbend (Leduc) aquifers (i.e., greater than 50 mg/L Li; note: 1 mg/L is equal to 1 ppm). Five of these wells have reported concentrations of over 75 mg/L Li in the Beaverhill Lake aquifer and ten wells have reported concentrations of over 75 mg/L Li in the Woodbend (Leduc) aquifer. The Devonian aquifers are situated at prospective depths of between 2,300 and 4,000 m, and the formation water is accessible via producing petroleum wells that pump the brine to the earth’s surface- essentially as waste water associated with hydrocarbon production.
• Currently, the extracted water is treated to separate and remove petroleum products and then is re-injected back into subsurface formations. It is conceivable that existing water processing procedures could be modified to extract lithium and other elements from the Leduc Formation aquifer system formation water; however at this stage of exploration there is no guarantee that Li and associated elements (K, B, Br, Ca, Mg and Na) described above will be economically extractable from the formation waters with current technology.

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