Summit Nanotech and Power Minerals announced they have entered into a binding term sheet leading toward a joint venture (JV) agreement to accelerate lithium production through shared asset ownership and development at the Salar de Incahuasi in Argentina. This comes as the lithium market experiences unprecedented growth due to the increasing demand for lithium-ion batteries, particularly in the race to mass produce electric vehicles. The JV concession at the Salar de Incahasi is part of an alluvial fan that has high quality brines with consistent lithium concentrations and a low impurity profile.

This shallow, clean salar has the promising potential to contribute to ramping up production of lithium from Argentina and is adjacent to assets owned by Allkem and Ganfeng Lithium. Summit's combination of proprietary DLE technology, which demonstrates excellent environmental and sustainability attributes, and Power's Incahuasi brines offer the opportunity for the parties to work together to produce commercial-scale volumes of high-quality lithium. The transaction combines Summit's first-in-class technology process with Power's expertise in systematic exploration and project development.

This marks Summit's first of many potential similar arrangements through which they will validate the performance of their DLE technology at scale for rapid future deployment at other lithium-rich salars in South America. Summit's denaLi?? technology and engineering expertise will enable the partnership to efficiently deliver the large volumes of high-quality lithium needed to power the global energy transition in an environmentally conscious and community-oriented way.

Key terms: Summit and Power's Binding Term Sheet provides for an option and joint venture agreement where Summit will provide to Power their technology and engineering resulting in a combination of pilot testing and USD 3 million (in two branches), for funding exploration activities at Incahuasi in exchange for shares in Power and a 30% participating interest in the joint venture. Summit has an option to earn up to 45% in the joint venture by funding a full feasibility study, including providing a viable DLE extraction process. Summit will be awarded 4.9% interest in the joint venture by meeting certain performance targets for a maximum possible interest of 49.9%.