The Lake Resources N.L. (ASX: LKE) share price is on the move in early trade on Wednesday following a company announcement.
At the time of writing, shares in the lithium explorer are down 18% at $1.04 apiece.
What did Lake announce?
The company updated investors on the progress made on its Pilot Project Agreement, dated for around 21 September 2021 with Lilac Solutions Inc.
Lake says that Lilac will "earn in to the Kachi Project, up to a 25% stake, based on achievement of certain milestones under the agreement by an agreed date".
Such milestones include completing at least 1,000 hours of operations and producing a lithium carbonate feed totalling at least 2,500 kg from the site.
However, it's understood that a dispute has arisen with respect to the timing of these milestones.
Whilst work has been continuing at Kachi, a dispute has arisen between Lake and Lilac as to the date by which these milestones need to be achieved, with Lake considering the milestones must be achieved by 30 September 2022 and Lilac considering it has until 30 November 2022 to do so.
To resolve the dispute, Lake has exercised its rights to have the dispute resolved either by agreement of both Lake and Lilac or by arbitration.
If the milestones are not achieved by the required date, then Lake has certain buy back rights under the agreement which it may exercise at its option.
Until the matter is sorted, work continues to progress on the definitive feasibility study (DFS) at the site.
More updates regarding any resolution and the ongoing DFS will be released from Lake in due course.
