Kula Gold has wasted no time in getting boots-on-ground over a pair of intriguing pegmatite swarms at its Kirup project in Western Australia’s South West region – within “cooee” of Talison Lithium’s mammoth Greenbushes mine.
Ramping up its lithium hunt, the company has mapped out strike extensions of lucrative pegmatites up to 2km at its freshly-minted Cobra prospect and up to 1km at its nearby Mustang deposit.
The company beckoned the attention of investors last week by revealing the discovery of outcropping spodumene-bearing rocks from reconnaissance field mapping and rock-chip sampling at its recently-acquired tenure. It seemed to be welcome news, sending Kula’s share price on a tear as it leapt more than 70 per cent to an intraday high of 2.4 cents.
Ongoing detailed field-mapping at the Mustang prospect, together with interpretation of geophysical datasets, has etched out a prospective pegmatite zone stretching up to 1km in strike and 100m wide, providing the company with a valuable “walk-up” drill target.
Drill planning is now in progress and Kula is hopeful that reverse-circulation (RC) drilling will follow at Mustang in this year’s third quarter.
About 12km south, mapping at the Cobra prospect has extended a 300m-thick pegmatite to a strike length of nearly 2km. Earlier rock-chip sampling over the pegmatite has revealed anomalous lithium results returning up to 240.8 parts per million lithium and 71.9ppm lithium.
The Mustang Prospect is progressing to be our first target for drilling out of the two new lithium prospects at the Kirup Project in the next month or two. The extent of the strike at the Mustang and Cobra Prospects with potential LCT suite mineralisation is testament to the lithium prospectivity being uncovered in this world class lithium region. Kula Gold chief executive officer Ric Dawson
Kula rubber-stamped a deal with Sentinel Exploration in March to pick up a 70 per cent piece of the project’s deposits of lithium and related minerals. Initial investigations undertaken by Sentinel identified 11 pegmatite locations at the site, with early due-diligence work undertaken by Kula also alluding to the potential of the prospective patch to house lithium-bearing rock types.
Kirup covers 117 square kilometres and sits about 20km to the west of the world-class Greenbushes mine. It complements Kula’s other lithium project, Brunswick, which lies about 20km to the north.
Located on the outskirts of the Yilgarn Craton, Brunswick and Kirup both sit within greenstones of the mineral-rich South West Terrane.
The evolving South West mineral field lays claim to hosting a bevy of world-class polymetallic deposits, including the colossal Boddington gold-copper mine and the hard-rock lithium deposit at Greenbushes. Chalice Mining is also rapidly unveiling the potential of its celebrated Julimar nickel-copper-PGE deposit.
Kula has just pulled the rods on a four-hole, 360m reverse-circulation (RC) drilling program at its Brunswick project’s Donnybrook gold prospect. Composite samples have been sent for geochemistry analysis to determine any potential lithium-caesium-tantalum and gold mineralisation.
Lithium is not traded on international commodity exchanges like other industrial commodities such as copper, lead and zinc. It is mainly traded on exchanges in China, which accounts for the lion’s share of global electric vehicle (EV) battery production.
Following the end to China’s generous EV subsidies earlier this year, lithium prices have seen a horror five-month run, plummeting more than 70 per cent from the lofty highs in November last year of US$85,000 (A$127,500) per tonne to the April lows of about US$28,000 (A$42,000) per tonne.
S&P Global Market Intelligence forecasts a looming supply shortage of battery-grade lithium in coming years, which it says will support prices above US$40,000 (A$60,040) a tonne as demand outstrips supply.
It is an economic brief that is no doubt music to the ears of Kula as it hunts for the white-hot metal.
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