Latin Resources says it has confirmed a third major spodumene discovery, about 1.8km south-west of its Colina deposit in Brazil, in visual results from the latest drill program at its Salinas lithium project.
Earlier this year, the company revealed a massive 241 per cent increase to the Colina mineral resource to 45.2 million tonnes at 1.34 per cent lithium oxide, representing a lithium carbonate equivalent of 1.477 million tonnes.
The latest visual results at Latin’s newly-dubbed Planalto target show about 45m of cumulative spodumene from a scouting campaign aimed at identifying new discoveries at Salinas, ahead of an upgraded mineral resource at Colina expected this year.
Management says the success of the first scout drilling program, from a completely blind interpreted location, fully validates its exploration model and provides it with many more similar targets to test.
While the company draws attention to the uncertainty of reporting visual results, assays are pending for the latest drillhole, with results expected within the next four to six weeks. However, Latin believes the core encountered in the latest drillhole has similar mineralisation characteristics to others from the high-grade Colina deposit.
Recent drilling at the Colina and Colina South West deposits continues to expand the lithium footprint where, according to management, consistently high-grade mineralisation intersected in infill and extensional drilling has boosted its confidence in its ability to build on the already sizable resource by year’s end.
The regional scout campaign forms part of Latin’s ongoing 65,000m program, with 10 rigs currently operating at the site. The company already has plans for further exploration drilling at Planalto early next year that will focus on delineating the new prospect, enabling a maiden mineral resource at its Fog’s Block deposit and expanding the current Colina resource.
We have always maintained a goal of reaching a global combined resource of around 80-100Mt at Salinas. Now with three major spodumene discoveries within easy trucking distance of the proposed centralised process facility, the Salinas Project is well positioned to achieve our ambitions. Latin Resources vice president of operations (Americas) Tony Greenaway
Just last month, the company received a firm commitment from a cluster of institutional and sophisticated investors to raise $35 million to expand the drilling program at Salinas.
Recent drilling at its 38,000-hectare, 100 per cent-owned Brazilian project revealed a pegmatite swarm at its Fog’s Block target, 12km south-west of Colina in an emerging project-scale lithium corridor. A further four diamond drillholes for 1612m have perforated the swarm, highlighting a 500m trend that extends to depths of 120m.
Notable results include 8.5m averaging 1.33 per cent lithium oxide, 8m at 1.08 per cent lithium oxide and a 5.5m run at 0.95 per cent lithium oxide.
In August, Latin proved it was able to produce a 5.5 per cent lithium oxide concentrate from the Colina deposit, with a 93.1 per cent recovery rate. Management says the results are a reliable indication of the potential for simple and cost-effective commercial lithium production by using the dense media separation (DMS) process.
The company used a DMS pilot plant to beneficiate spodumene from waste and says the outcome proved up a reliable indication of the method’s commercial potential. It says the grade of the produced concentrate and the “impressive” recovery rate proves the ability of Colina ore to be produced using a DMS-only flowsheet.
Latin has been on a rags-to-riches trajectory and making a third major spodumene discovery at a renowned lithium hotspot will no doubt keep it hunting further towards the positive end of that trail.
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