St George Mining has secured financial support for a drill campaign at its Mt Alexander lithium project after a global battery minerals company provided a $2 million cornerstone commitment.
The explorer’s recent placement received commitments of more than $7 million including $2.04 million from Shanghai Jayson New Energy Materials – a significant supplier to the emerging clean energy sector and the world’s leading producer of cathode precursor materials for lithium-ion batteries.
St George says the investor interest reflects the significance of the Mt Alexander project where the company has discovered high-grade lithium-bearing pegmatites along a 15km corridor near Leonora.
Jayson, a company of more than 2900 employees worldwide, has investments in lithium, nickel, copper and cobalt projects in several countries.
St George Mining Executive Chairman, John Prineas said: “We welcome Jayson – a global company that shares our focus on the exploration and development of clean energy metals – as a key shareholder in St George. Jayson has established an enviable supply chain in the clean energy sector that secures the supply of energy metals for its battery manufacturing operations.”
A total of 105,941,190 shares at $0.068 per share will be issued under the placement to raise $7,204,000 that will be used for exploration and development activities at Mt Alexander, further exploration at St George’s other projects and for working capital.
The company is currently completing its maiden drill campaign at Mt Alexander to test several pegmatite outcrops where high-grade lithium mineralisation has been confirmed by assays of rock chip samples.
Last month analysis of its first batch of 10 samples returned grades as high as 2.72 per cent lithium oxide. Additional rock chip results include 1.97 per cent, 1.15 per cent, 1.68 per cent and 2.72 per cent lithium oxide. St George picked up the samples from a series of stacked pegmatite dykes in a north-south zone of the project at its recently identified Jailbreak prospect.
The explorer is currently conducting a maiden drill campaign at the site where a total of 10 holes have been completed so far across 945m with two significant target areas identified for ongoing drilling. Multiple pegmatite intervals have been intercepted up to 13m thick from surface with lithium-bearing minerals visually identified in drill chips from the current 20-hole campaign. A second hole recorded a 7m pegmatite interval whilst four more drill holes recorded pegmatite hits at 5m in width.
The company has planned a 20,000m drill program set to begin next year to test the scope and scale of lithium mineralisation at Mt Alexander and now with its saddlebags stuffed with cash its set to get off to a flying start in 2023.
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By Matt Birney
