Latin Resources’ ASX share price surged more than 24 per cent today to reach a five-year high of 30.5 cents during intraday trading after hitting multiple spodumene-rich pegmatites in a reconnaissance drilling program.
The company’s latest round of work has extended its Colina pegmatite system 560m to the south-west, potentially opening up what it believes could be a new lithium corridor.
The explorer says its recent diamond drilling campaign intersected pegmatites at two separate locations.
The first was 560m south-west of the company’s Colina “pegmatite system”, where three of four holes drilled struck shallow, visible spodumene-rich pegmatites at Latin’s Southwest target. Management says visual core observations of identified 29.86m of spodumene pegmatite mineralisation.
About 11.5km further along in the same direction, the first diamond drillhole of the campaign at its Fog’s Block tenement also revealed multiple pegmatites with visual observations clocking 32.69m of cumulative spodumene mineralisation.
Meanwhile, outcrop mapping 6km to the south-west of Latin’s Colina deposit identified a third new pegmatite occurrence sitting within the potential new corridor.
The company says results of its latest drilling and mapping underline the potential for growth of its Colina lithium deposit, which just last week was upgraded by 241 per cent to an impressive 45.2 million tonnes at 1.34 per cent lithium.
These latest drilling intersections validate our regional interpretation of a large, mineralised pegmatite system potentially extending up to 26 km to the southwest of our flagship Colina Deposit and provides Latin with a very clear pathway for further resource expansion. We will continue to drill test these newly identified areas in parallel with the ongoing infill and systematic step-out drilling at Colina itself, with the aim of growing the existing 45 Mt resource base at Colina. Latin Resources vice president of operations – Americas, Tony Greenaway
The company now has three drill rigs working over its Southwest target. Having already punched through four holes for a total of 2319m, the crews are now working on a further three holes.
At the Fog’s Block target, a sole rig has finished off one hole, with another three to come for a total of 2000m. An extra four holes may be plunged depending on the results of the first campaign.
Last week, China unveiled a US$72.3 billion (AU$108.8 billion) package of tax breaks over four years for electric and other green vehicles – a move which research group Rystad Energy predicted would see EV sales grow by 30 per cent next year. Such growth points to one thing … the requirement for a lot more lithium.
With Latin continuing to work to the mantra of “drill baby, drill”, it would appear to be only a matter of time before its resource swells again.
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