Lithium Australia is wasting no time building on its significant new lithium resource at the Sadisdorf project in Germany with news this week that a crew is already on site preparing a maiden program of large-diameter diamond drill holes.
The specialist developer of breakthrough lithium processing technologies and junior explorer announced less than a fortnight ago a maiden lithium resource at the historic Sadisdorf tin mine of 25 million tonnes at 0.45% lithium oxide.
The new resource was announced without Lithium Australia even drilling a hole at the project.
The JORC 2012 estimate was prepared by CSA Global by simply re-analysing and re-interpreting historical drilling and underground sampling.
Lithium Australia elected to farm into the project earlier this year on the basis that Sadisdorf is characterised by “greisens” or altered granites that are known to contain abundant Lithium micas in the form of Zinnwaldite.
The resource is already potentially large enough to supply a 25,000 tonne per annum lithium carbonate plant for 10 years, however Lithium Australia is keen to see how much it can be improved with modern exploration drilling.
The imminent drill program will sink two holes for a total of 460 metres. The rig will extract large core measuring 101 millimetres in diameter to provide the most sample material possible for future metallurgical testwork.
Lithium Australia Managing Director, Adrian Griffin, said: “This is the first drilling at the Sadisdorf project since 1990. The initial holes will not only duplicate historic drill holes but also target mineralised zones outside the current mineral resource estimate. This work will progress our goal of breathing new life into the Sadisdorf project and potentially supplying raw materials into the European battery industry.”
Metallurgical testwork with Lithium Australia’s innovative SiLeach processing technology will be the key to unlocking value from the Sadisdorf deposit. Preliminary tests on the outer greisen material have already returned encouraging results, with lithium leach extractions averaging 95% from tin concentrates.
Lithium Australia earlier this year struck a staged farm-in deal at Sadisdorf with Tin International AG, a subsidiary of German-listed Deutsche Rohstoff. It can earn 15% by the end of 2017 by spending EUR 750,000 on exploration or by cash payment and can increase this to 50% by investing a further EUR 1.25 million over the next three years.
Lithium Australia shares rallied on the news of the Sadisdorf maiden resource, climbing by 22% in the following week. Investors are excited by the potential returns from a significant new lithium supply in the heart of Europe’s booming battery industry.
By Matt Birney
