Future Battery Minerals has kicked off a third-phase reverse-circulation (RC) drilling program at its Kangaroo Hills project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region, with a focus on infilling its Big Red prospect, in addition to testing other targets.
Management says its infill drilling will look to further test an area which has already delivered results including 29m going 1.36 per cent lithium from 38m and 27m grading 1.32 per cent from 64m.
The company’s regional targets of Eastern Grey, Wallaroo and Pademelon will also receive closer inspection, with a high priority put on the Rocky prospect that has tossed up a 5m intersection running 1.12 per cent lithium from 104m.
The Phase 3 drilling program signals an expansive next step in exploration at the Kangaroo Hill lithium project. Work to date has successfully discovered shallow high grade spodumene bearing pegmatites at Big Red, highlighting the potential of the project. The RC programme will further test the exciting discovery at Big Red and Rocky, while also testing the recently defined high priority regional targets, all of which could substantially contribute to the success of the KHLP. Future Battery Minerals technical director Robin Cox
The Kangaroo Hills lithium project is an 80-20 joint venture between Future Battery and Lodestar Resources and sits about 17km south of Coolgardie.
An expanded RC and diamond drilling campaign of up to 10,000m to test the northern extension at Big Red is set to start once various paperwork has been received.
The company is also awaiting imminent assay results from phase-two diamond drilling and mineralogy work as it continues to build a stockpile of targets across its project using geophysics.
Future Battery also has other projects in its stable, including its flagship Saints play that sits 70km north of Kalgoorlie and hosts a high-grade komatiite nickel sulphide deposit. Last year, the company upgraded its resource to a JORC 2012-compliant 911,000 tonnes at 2.3 per cent nickel, 0.17 per cent copper and 0.07 per cent cobalt for 21,000 tonnes of nickel, 1500 tonnes of copper and 600 tonnes of cobalt.
The resource is mainly in the indicated category, with a scoping study into the viability of an underground mining operation set to lead to an ongoing prefeasibility study and further exploration at the site.
Saints comprises two mining leases covering an area of about 20 square kilometres of prospective Archaean greenstone belt geology within the Eastern Goldfields province of the Yilgarn Craton. The operation sits in the same sequence of rocks as the historical Scotia nickel mine that produced 30,800 tonnes of contained nickel at 2.2 per cent before closing in 1977.
Future Battery also holds an 80 per cent share in the Nepean nickel project, with Lodestar controlling the remaining 20 per cent. The site near Coolgardie contains the historic high-grade Nepean nickel sulphide mine that produced more than a million tonnes of ore between 1970 and 1987 for 32,202 tonnes of nickel metal at an average recovered grade of 2.99 per cent.
Phase-two RC drilling for the project is nearing completion, with work already being done to plan the next round of exploration.
The exploration comes at a prime time when sales of electric vehicles (EVs) are booming.
Earlier this week, EV trailblazer Tesla said it had delivered 466,140 vehicles in the second quarter, a leap of more than 80 per cent on the figures from just a year earlier. The juggernaut said it had boosted vehicle production to nearly 480,000 in the same period.
Part of the reason for the record numbers came from rocketing sales in China, which were restricted to Tesla.
Also this week, Beijing-based Li-Auto said its deliveries had hit an all-time high of 32,575 vehicles in June, marking its third consecutive monthly sales record. Deliveries by Shanghai-based Nio and Guangzhou-based Xpeng jumped to 10,707 and 8620 respectively during the month.
With all those new cars on the road, it means a lot more lithium will be needed and Future Battery is well on the hunt.
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