Dart Mining has launched a new drill campaign aimed at testing the company’s top-priority pegmatite targets through phase-two field work at its Dorchap lithium joint venture project in north-east Victoria.
Management says its latest round of work focussing on the central Gosport region is strongly supported by its giant joint venture (JV) partner, Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (SQM). It is following results from its phase-one drilling campaign that revealed impressive intersections in nine of 12 diamond drillholes across five separate pegmatite dykes.
With striking phase-one results received from its Boone’s dyke target, including 7m at 1.38 per cent lithium oxide from 313m and 0.62m at 1.63 per cent lithium oxide from 80m, the company has secured ongoing exploration support to start the phase-two program through its recent $12 million earn-in JV agreement with SQM.
Dart says it has fast-tracked permitting and field activities to test pegmatites identified in its 2021 Lidar survey, where more than 220 targets of interest revealed similar features to pegmatite dykes – with the Dorchap project regarded as a top priority.
The company is targeting six prospects within Dorchap, five of which were drill-tested in the phase-one campaign. Management has multiple field teams operating across its high-priority target areas at Gosport, with mapping and sampling of outcropping pegmatites part of the phase-two work.
Dart is now planning a diamond drilling campaign for Gosport, which is host to a high number of prospective pegmatites in a dyke swarm and shows lithium potential from high-grade rock-chip sampling.
The company is currently going through the approval process.
The Dorchap Lithium project remains a top priority of Dart Mining. The acceleration of permitting and field activities as well as continuing support from SQM on the project, are testament to our confidence in, and prospectivity of, the region. These field activities build on our existing understanding of the system as we seek to increase the number of prospective targets for future drill testing. Dart Mining chairman James Chirnside
The company says it still has hundreds of pegmatites left to follow up at Dorchap.
The project was identified from a lithium discovery at the site in 2016 after regional sampling of the Dorchap Range. Results as high as 1.57 per cent from grab samples at the Bluejacket Dyke helped define the prospectivity, in addition to anomalous caesium and tantalum results and a standout 9.98 per cent tin oxide from a grab sample in the area.
Dart is well placed in the north-east province of Victoria, holding about 6100 square kilometres of tenements in the Lachlan Fold Belt in north-eastern Victoria, which holds a rich history in solid precious metal mining. It leaves the multi-commodity explorer well-placed to pursue its aim of evaluating and developing the historic goldfields in the area and to demonstrate a new porphyry province in the east of the country.
With a market cap of $3.87 million and a lucrative earn-in JV deal with Chile’s mining giant already under its belt, the company appears to be in a well-grounded place to be able to ride out the challenges ahead. It is also fortunate to have other highly-prospective projects in precious metals, with good gold grades and interestingly-strong silver grades adding another string to the company’s bow during uncertain times.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: office@bullsnbears.com.au