ENRG Elements’(ASX: EEL) plans to ramp up exploration at its lithium project in Canada have been boosted by a C$180,000 (AU$202,000) cash injection after it secured a timely co-funded grant from the Manitoba Mineral Development Fund (MMDF).
The funding will assist with the company’s planned exploration program this year that is designed to include prospecting, surface geochemical work and geophysical and drone-assisted magnetic and LIDAR surveys.
The MMDF was launched by the Manitoba Government with the goal of kick-starting mineral and economic development throughout the province. It aims to support new opportunities that capitalise on existing infrastructure and assets within Manitoba.
The fund has already approved 60 projects worth C$9.8 million (AU$11.1 million) in funding since its launch in 2020.
The company says its funding will enable it to begin work at its three recently-granted mineral exploration licences at Handle Lake, Split Lake and Unwin Lake. It says an application for a fourth licence, at the Beaver Hill Lake prospect, is still pending.
We are delighted to have been awarded this co-funded grant from the MMDF and look forward to getting onto the ground and starting our exploration program in Manitoba.
ENRG Elements managing director Caroline Keats
The company completed an initial geological assessment within areas it considered prospective and chose four prospects, with Handle Lake, Split Lake, Beaver Hill Lake and Unwin Lake selected for application. It says the Beaver Hill Lake and Unwin Lake were picked due to their geological similarities to that of the region’s large Tanco lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) mine and the fractionated LCT pegmatite model.
Handle Lake and Split Lake were chosen as they are on granite-greenstone contacts. In all applications, there is evidence of pegmatite as either dykes, veins or swarms identified in historic diamond drilling or exploration reports.
It is worth noting that historical exploration through the application areas focused on gold and base metals and did not target lithium or its associated minerals. None of the pegmatites were assayed for lithium or its pathfinder minerals of tantalum-tin-niobium-beryllium.
The three granted mining licences and the pending application cover some 500 square kilometres in two separate geological provinces. The northern applications of Handle Lake and Split Lake are at the southern end of the Trans-Hudson orogen, while the two southern applications consisting of Unwin Lake and Beaver Hill Lake are within the “pegmatite field” of the western part of the Superior Province, which extends from Manitoba through to Quebec.
In both cases, the underlying Archean basement comprising granite-tonalite-granodiorite and associated pegmatites, in addition to the identified lithological units associated with the Tanco mine, provided the basis for the applications.
The Handle Lake licence covers 74sq km and is about 95km north of Thompson, the biggest city in northern Manitoba. The Split Lake licence covers 75.7sq km and is about 103km north-east of Thompson and about 48km north-west of the Split Lake community.
The Unwin Lake licence covers 263.13sq km and is within the greenstone belt of north-eastern Manitoba, about 97km south-east of Thompson. The prospective area is considered to have a similar geological setting to the Tanco Mine, about 518km to the south, within the Superior Province.
The Beaver Hill Lake area under application covers 87.7sq km in north-eastern Manitoba at the southern end of God’s Lake, 250km south-east of Thompson.
Sinomine Resources Group owns the world-class Tanco LCT mine in eastern Manitoba. The mine has been in commercial operation for more than 50 years and has the region’s biggest-known occurrence of the mineralisation ENRG is chasing, with significant reserves of high-grade spodumene, petalite and lepidolite.
And with the latest cash boost to assist in ramping-up this year’s exploration program, ENRG is now well and truly off and running in its hunt for Canadian lithium.
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