Initial reports from extensive soil and rock chip sampling at Pan Asia Metals’ (ASX: PAM) KT East lithium prospect in southern Thailand has mapped out a highly-prospective zone abundant in lepidolite pegmatites stretching some 1.5km in length and 500m wide.
The company says the substantial KT prospect, which sits some 35km to the north of the mineral resources and exploration targets at its respective RK and BT prospects, presents a footprint that is already bigger in scale than those two areas combined.
The KT revelation builds on Pan Asia’s announcement last month that it had defined a broader 2.4km-by-2.4km pegmatite swarm at the site. The company’s ongoing field programs are continuing to identify additional pegmatites, with some individual dykes being observed up to an impressive 20m in width at surface.
Those sites, in addition to several others, are seen by management as walk-up, drill-ready targets, with drilling expected to kick off later this year.
The company now has three substantial prospects within the Reung Kiet (RK) lithium project – the RK prospect and the Bang I Tum (BT) deposit to the south and the newly-identified Kata Thong (KT) East prospect to the north – all of which lie within the Phang Nga Province of southern Thailand.
KT presents PAM a substantial extension to RK and BT prospects and, with the KT footprint already larger than RK and BT combined, KT has the potential to add substantial tonnes, which means potential for an extended project life and/or increased annual LCE production. These results are feeding into discussions with strategic partners, so the KT exploration success is timely.
Pan Asia Metals managing director Paul Lock
The RK prospect has a mineral resource estimate of 14.8 million tonnes at 0.45 per cent lithium oxide for 164,500 tonnes of contained LCE. It is a site of considerable previous mining activity and contains a 500m-long open pit from when the project operated as late as the early 1970s.
Importantly, in terms of lepidolite lithium production, deposits running more than 0.4 per cent lithium are considered high-grade in nature and can come close to rivalling the production costs of the major spodumene producers throughout Western Australia.
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The BT prospect, just a few kilometres away, is an extension to the RK lithium deposit and has an exploration target of between 16 and 25 million tonnes at 0.4 to 0.7 per cent lithium oxide. Interestingly, KT East lies directly along trend of RK and BT and is considered by management to be a natural extension to those deposits.
The successful definition of a mineral resource at the considerable KT prospect is expected to give Pan Asia the scope for increased annual LCE production and/or a longer project life. It makes the RK lithium project an attractive and strategically-positioned partner with the potential to provide battery metals to the growing Southeast Asian market that has been valued this year at $4.32 billion.
As good news continues to flow in from Pan Asia’s field programs, the company is no doubt chomping at the bit to prove KT’s potential to the market, with the drill bit slated to pierce through the prospect later this year.
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