Big Drill Hits: Critical Resources hits wide and high-grade lithium, Felix strikes gold

Welcome back to Weekly Big Drill Hits – A curated list of the most intriguing intersections made by ASX-listed explorers. Quarterly reporting season has kept exploration rather subdued this week.

Lithium

Canadian wildfires continue to delay exploration activities for companies like Patriot Battery Metals (ASX: PMT) and Winsome Resources (ASX: WR1).

The 'Interval' reflects the length of the core and 'From' reflects interval start. Only the highest grade thickness intercept is shown (per announcement. The data is for illustrative purposes only and may not be an exhaustive list of all drill hits. (Data date range: 24-28 July)

Critical Resources (ASX: CRR) hit a solid 1.18% lithium intercept with a width of 74.4 metres. The company said this is the "widest interval of spodumene mineralisation recorded to date at the Mavis Lake Lithium Project, highlighting the Project's significant upside potential."

The next day (Thursday, 27 July), the company raised $10.2 million to fund further resource growth and development at Mavis.

Back in May, Critical Resources announced a maiden Mineral Resource for the project of 8.0 million tonnes at 1.07% Li₂. What's interesting is that the Mineral Resource is based on drilling on approximately 2% of the project area, so the company anticipates significant potential for further resource upgrades in the near-term.

Critical Resources 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)

Copper

A few incremental copper hits this week.

The 'Interval' reflects the length of the core and 'From' reflects interval start. Only the highest grade thickness intercept is shown (per announcement. The data is for illustrative purposes only and may not be an exhaustive list of all drill hits. (Data date range: 24-28 July)

Gold

The 'Interval' reflects the length of the core and 'From' reflects interval start. Only the highest grade thickness intercept is shown (per announcement. The data is for illustrative purposes only and may not be an exhaustive list of all drill hits. (Data date range: 24-28 July)

Shares in most of the explorers above struggled for upside this week.

Felix Gold (ASX: FXG) presents a more interesting chart that's beginning to bottom out after a 30% slump in June through to early July. It's reclaimed the 10 cent level in recent weeks on volumes we haven't seen since its February 2020 debut.

From an exploration perspective, the company announced more assay results from a further 17 holes at its Treasure Creek Project in Alaska this week. The results yielded extensive zones of shallow high-grade gold mineralisation.

Felix Gold 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)