Future Battery Minerals (ASX: FBM) has unveiled an impressive maiden resource of 6.2 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) for its Nevada lithium project (NLP) in the United States.
The company says its Lone Mountain deposit remains open at depth and to the north and east, with a strike length of more than 3km providing scope for further growth at its 80 per cent owned NLP in the western State of Nevada.
The resource comprises 1.5 billion tonnes at 783 parts per million lithium for the 6.2 million tonnes of LCE and starts from 35m below the surface. All 24 reverse-circulation (RC) and three diamond drill hole results were included in the resource calculations.
Promisingly, about 42 per cent of the resource sits in the indicated category and the 783ppm grade is comparable or better than the resources of other projects within the area.
Management says its NLP sits on more than 90 square kilometres that is highly prospective for sedimentary-hosted lithium clay deposits. It says the project has many contiguous high-grade intersections of greater than 1000ppm and up to 66m thick.
We believe the NLP holds significant value, given the size and quality of lithium claystone deposition. Its location in a proven mining and development region, and within the US., a nation increasingly determined to deliver itself home-grown security of critical raw material supply, makes NLP a significant discovery.
Future Battery Minerals managing director and chief executive officer Nick Rathjen
The company’s results from each stage of drilling appears to show an improvement in both thickness and grade. Phase-one drilling intersected 109.7m at 766ppm lithium from 135.6m, showing the potential for a significant resource.
Phase-two results provided thicker intersections, with an impressive 179.8m at 766ppm lithium from 39.6m including 19.8m at 1010ppm from 80.8m and 170.7m at 764ppm from 67.1m to end-of-hole including 27.4m at 1030ppm from 112.8m.
And phase-three drilling went even better, with an astonishingly thick hit of 266m at 855ppm lithium from 140m including 66m at 1001ppm from 216m and 180m going 818ppm from 40m including 51m at 915ppm from 53m.
The mineralisation found at the project has slightly different geology known as “claystone-hosted” lithium that is neither brine nor hard rock. The project has five key prospects – Lone Mountain, Western Flats, San Antone, Traction and Heller.
All of the prospects within the project area are hosted in the clays of the Siebert Formation, which also hosts lithium mineralisation in adjacent tenements at American Lithium’s TLC deposit and American Battery Technology Corporation’s Tonopah Flats play.
The Nevada project area is home to North America’s only producing lithium mine, Albemarle Corporation’s Silver Peak operation that has been pumping out lithium since the 1960s. It sits about 45km away from Future Battery’s ground.
Future Battery’s Nevada project is also just 200km south-east of the lithium-hungry Tesla gigafactory where demand for the battery metal is modelled to grow in line with the expected rapid growth in electric vehicle (EV) sales.
It is about 12 km from the historic mining hub of Tonopah in Nevada and is readily accessible year-round via State Route 95. The NLP resides within a premier global mining district that is home to advanced lithium claystone projects such as Ioneer’s Rhyolite Ridge and Lithium Americas’ Thacker Pass.
The company also has the extremely promising Kangaroo Hills lithium project in Western Australia, sitting some 30km west of Mineral Resources’ highly successful Mt Marion lithium project that boasts a 66.1-million-tonne resource grading 1.36 per cent lithium oxide.
Kangaroo Hills contains the prospective Big Red deposit that has recorded stellar drill hits such as 29m at 1.36 per cent lithium oxide from 38m, 27m going 1.32 per cent from 64m, 22m at 1.24 per cent from 23m and 23m going 1.19 per cent.
The company is currently operating a 3000m drill program to test for a northern extension to the deposit, with its Big Red North and Whip Tail anomalous targets to be tested during the new campaign.
Future Battery’s compelling Nevada lithium clay project, while it is also exploring what is shaping up to be a solid WA play, gives more than six million reasons why the company could be worth keeping an eye on.
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