Battery Metals

Metals Australia looking for zinc, lithium in WA

Tue 14 Jun 22, 4:13pm (AEDT)
Conceptual illustration using futuristic motifs representing a collection of batteries
Source: iStock

Key Points

  • Early next week, Metals Australia will fire up the diamond drill hunting for lithium and zinc
  • Drilling to follow-up on known targets with evidence of zinc and lithium
  • Company working toward a maiden JORC 2012 resource estimate

Metals Australia (ASX:MLS) will spend the second half of June drilling for zinc and lithium at its WA Manidi Battery Minerals project. 

Having acquired a diamond drill rig, the company will now set about investigating follow-up leads at two known targets prospective for zinc-copper and lithium respectively. 

Earlier RC drilling activities recovered core samples with zinc and lithium minerals present. 

While zinc and lithium are the two prize targets, vanadium, nickel, copper and cobalt potential remains on the radar.

Previous drill intercepts also returned silver. 

(Source: Metals Australia) A map locating previously sunk drillholes on-site
(Source: Metals Australia) A map locating previously sunk drillholes on-site

Testing how far it goes

The diamond drill run will test for extensions of known mineralised zones, which in layman’s terms, means the company want to find out where the mineralisation stops. 

This will help the company geologists form a model of the dimensions of the mineralised areas on-site, which in turn, will help establish a resource estimate for the project. 

Currently, the Manidi project does have a JORC 2012 mineral resource estimate, but not one prepared by Metals Australia. 

The company is seeking to change that in the coming months. 

Diamond drilling activities will also foreshadow further downhole electromagnetic tests and the collection of metallurgical samples towards the same outcome. 

Metals Australia's three month chart performance shows the knock-around caused by current sell-offs
Metals Australia's three month chart performance shows the knock-around caused by current sell-offs

 

What has Metals Australia found so far?

The new diamond drill campaign starting next week will follow-up on targets previously intercepted by RC drilling. Those results include: 

  • 68m @ 3.09% zinc from 89m depth (MNRC070) 

  • 24m @ 6.47% zinc from 100m depth (MNRC070) 

  • 11m @ 1.23% lithium from 16m depth (MNRC045) 

  • 5m @ 1.47% lithium from 16m depth  (MNRC045)

 

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Written By

Jonathon Davidson

Finance Writer

Jonathon is a journalism graduate and avid market watcher with exposure to governance, NGO and mining environments. He was most recently hired as an oil and gas specialist for a trade publication.

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