CENTURY LITHIUM RECEIVES WATER POLLUTION CONTROL PERMIT FOR DEMONSTRATION PLANT
Century advances its Angel Island project toward a 2028 permitting decision.
Century Lithium Corp. (LCE) has received a Water Pollution Control Permit (WPCP) from the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection for its Tonopah Airport Lithium Processing Demonstration Facility. The permit authorizes the construction, operation, and closure of the facility, marking a key step in reconstructing and upgrading the plant to complete test work outlined in the 2026 Feasibility Study.
Pre-operational requirements, including hydrostatic testing of the liner and leak detection systems for the two tailings ponds, are currently underway. Construction of the process building is pending final Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval, as the site is leased airport property requiring environmental review. The demonstration plant will validate the company's patent-pending hydrochloric acid leaching and direct lithium extraction process, including structured testing for rare earth element (REE) recovery.
Century Lithium Corp. (LCE) received the Water Pollution Control Permit (WPCP), a routine permitting milestone that follows the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) completeness determination for the Angel Island Mine Plan of Operations on November 3, 2026. This development confirms the company is progressing on parallel regulatory tracks, managing state-level environmental permits for the demonstration plant alongside federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews for the main project.
The news does not introduce new financial metrics, production timelines, or strategic shifts. Instead, it validates the execution of the 2026 Feasibility Study's testing roadmap. The pending Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval remains the immediate bottleneck for construction, representing a standard procedural delay rather than a fundamental project risk.
The demonstration plant’s role is strictly technical validation and research and development; it does not generate revenue or alter the $997 million Phase 1 capital requirement for Angel Island.
Century Lithium Corp. (LCE) is a pre-revenue development-stage company focused on the 100%-owned Angel Island Lithium Project in Esmeralda County, Nevada. The project hosts one of the largest known sedimentary lithium deposits in the U.S., with Proven & Probable reserves of 287.65 million tonnes grading 1,149 ppm Li (1.759 Mt LCE).
The company’s flagship processing technology is a patent-pending chloride-based process combining hydrochloric acid leaching and direct lithium extraction (DLE) to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide. This integrated chlor-alkali process generates reagents on-site from salt, water, and electricity, eliminating reliance on sulfuric acid and producing surplus sodium hydroxide as a co-product.
The 2026 Feasibility Study outlines a 60+ year mine life, Phase 1 capital of $997 million, and an after-tax NPV of $4.01 billion at a $24,000/t lithium carbonate price.