Askari Metals has continued its “aggressive” lithium hunt at its Uis project in Namibia, with its drills revealing new lithium-bearing pegmatites with widths of up to 112 metres.
Management is now using mapping to help identify further targets for examination across two unexplored tenements in a bid to collect benchmark data for its next phase of exploration.
The company has wrapped up two phase-one drilling campaigns at its EPL 7345 and EPL 8535 prospects with 59 drill holes each for a combined total of 6540m. A second phase at EPL 7345 is also nearing completion, with 55 drill holes completed to date for 3367m.
Askari Metals vice president exploration and geology Johan Lambrechts said: "The results have seen us intersect some very wide pegmatites with lithium-bearing minerals, and we eagerly await the assay results of these follow-on phases…. The lithium tenor of the results also aligns well with what is known in the region and we are confident of building on the exploration results achieved to date as we continue with our aggressive exploration and development campaign at the Uis Lithium Project.”
The second phase of exploration at EPL 7345 produced the 112-metre intersection and followed on from the company’s first program, which targeted an area where artisanal miners had gone after thin, shallow mineralised pegmatites that rarely went deeper than 12 metres below the surface. The latest phase of work is expected to soon be finished and additional mapping of the area will be led by the results of the current drilling campaign.
Mapping of EPL 8535 is likely to continue for the next three months given its significant size of 210 square kilometres.
Askari’s Uis project covers 308sq km in a highly-mineralised, spodumene-rich pegmatite belt with a history of prior production and exploration success.
Many of the pegmatites have been mined historically for tin and semi-precious stones and altered spodumene and lepidolite are visible within the workings and in the mined rock around them.
The project sits less than 5km from the township of Uis and less than 2.5km from Andrada’s operating lithium-tin-tantalum mine in west-central Namibia. Andrada’s Uis mine has resources of 81 million tonnes at 0.73 per cent lithium oxide, 0.15 per cent tin and 0.14 per cent rubidium. It gives the mine a total resource metal content of 1.45 million tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent, 120,000 tonnes of tin metal and 109,400 tonnes of rubidium with substantial tantalum.
Andrada believes its mine is world-class and expects to eventually expand its resources to about 200 million tonnes.
Askari bought about a third of its ground last month and sampled various pegmatite outcrops during its due diligence work. Assays identified high-grade lithium, tin, tantalum and rubidium up to 2.11 per cent lithium oxide, 1.3 per cent tin, 658 parts per million tantalum and 4214ppm rubidium.
The company has had its news flow in overdrive recently as it gets it supporting cast in order. Yesterday, it installed Canaccord Genuity (Australia) as its strategic capital markets advisor and management believes the renowned investment bank, which says it has been entrusted with more than $15 billion in clients’ funds, has a proven track record and extensive experience in the global lithium sector.
Askari also recently sealed a $2.5 million strategic equity investment from global battery materials supply giant, Huayou International Resources, with the funds to be used to turbocharge lithium exploration at Uis.
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By Steve Kaless
