Burley Minerals bullish on Canadian lithium prospects

Shares for ASX-listed junior lithium explorer and microcap Burley Minerals (ASX:BUR) were up 10% in the third hour of trades as the company confirmed its suspicions a commercial-scale lithium system is present at the company’s North American project. 

Burley voiced its confidence about its Quebec-based acreage at the Chubb Lithium Project on Tuesday, which the company acquired only recently. 

“We were delighted to see unanimous approval from shareholders for the issue of the Chubb Lithium Project completion shares at the 19 January 2023 General Meeting, which showed overwhelming support for the recent transaction,” Burley MD Wayne Richards said. 

Burley will move ahead with phase 1 Diamond Drilling (DD) at Chubb in February of 2023. 

The use of a DD rig will allow for the company to drill beyond depths of 300m (the general cut-off for Reverse Circulation [RC] drilling) and return whole cylindrical core samples to surface. 

Chubb overview 

The Chub project covers a 15sq.km area located 25km north of Val d’Or, a well established mining town in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec province. 

Despite its namesake, there is no “valley of gold” in Val d’Or, for there is no valley. 

What there is, however, is what Burley describes as a series of parallel lithium-bearing formations (technically called dykes in geological lingo) some 560m in length and 240m in width. 

The company is just one of many ASX-listers to move to Canada to hunt for lithium in recent weeks and months. 

• Many Peaks Gold (ASX:MPG) moved into Canada earlier this week.

• Pure Resources (ASX:PR1) recently expanded its lithium acreage in Quebec province after first moving there in November last year.

• Recent ASX lister Patriot Battery Metals (ASX:PMT) has also kicked off its 2023 drill run in Quebec Province. 

The government overseeing the Quebec region in 2020 included a beefed up spend in its yearly budget for the support of lithium exploration developments, which Sayona Mining (ASX:SYA) welcomed at the time. 

Sayona and Piedmont Lithium (ASX:PLL) operate a JV lithium project in the same geological area as Burley’s Chubb project, the Manneville Deformation Corridor.

The Quebec provincial government continues to promote battery metal and critical mineral supply chain security initiatives.

Geological model explainer 

The company’s geological models suggest mineralisation is contained within five of these formations stacked alongside one another with mineralisation remaining open in both directions at either end of the system, as well as at depth. 

In short: the company believes it has a good deal of lithium yet to find. 

That would be impressive, given the existing data at Chubb underpinning Burley’s assumptions. 

Making sense of old drill results 

Investor advisory firm Next Investors classify high-grade lithium as that in concentrations over 1% per assay sample. 

Compare that to the following historical drill results at Chubb: 

• 12m @ 1.57% lithium from 108m depth 

• 11.8m @ 1.28% lithium from 83m depth 

• 09m @ 1.26% lithium from 69m depth 

• 6.3m @ 1.18% lithium from 54m depth 

• 5.8m @ 1.24% lithium from 70m depth 

• 5.4m @ 1.24% lithium from 31.2m depth

The results of this historical drilling suggests that grades increase at depth, although the most shallow result at 31m also shows a brief core equivalent intersection at 5m grading above 1% lithium. 

Burley noted on Tuesday that higher grade lithium zones appear correlated with the centremost of five dyke structures identified on-site. 

Want to know more? 

A number of considerations can be made about Burley Minerals using Market Index’s free company data, including but not limited to: 

• Share price of 26c* 

• Market cap of $8.9m* 

• One year returns up 48.57% 

• Year to date returns up 18.18% 

• Average 4 week trading volume of 53,475 shares 

• Ranked 732 of 943 materials sector companies 

• Company held $3.7m in cash at end of September 

• It spent $309,000 in opex over the same period 

• It has not raised any capital since 

*As at 1150 AEST Tuesday 24 January 2023

Burley Minerals' one year charts