Calidus spin-off lands more Pilbara lithium

Calidus Resources’ recent off shoot Pirra Lithium has produced another grab bag of high-grade results from its latest rock-chip sampling and mapping program at the company’s Spear Hill discovery in WA’s emerging East Pilbara lithium field. The recently identified pegmatite has been mapped out over 2.5 kilometres in strike with assays yielding up to an impressive 2.75 per cent lithium oxide.

The field program has reportedly also identified a second, poorly exposed, parallel pegmatite that has returned assays up to 1.67 per cent lithium oxide. The newly identified pegmatite is located about 250 metres to the north of the discovery pegmatite.

The company’s maiden sampling program in March traced out a lithium-rich pegmatite across a 1.2km strike with widths up to 30m noted.

Further mapping by the company has identified a likely fault that offsets of the prospective pegmatite by about 700m to the northeast.

Encouragingly, Calidus says an additional 1.2km of prospective pegmatite has been etched out over the neighbouring tenement about 700m from the initial discovery. Whilst the adjacent tenement is currently under application by Pirra Lithium, the company expects it will be granted.

A further 70 rock-chip samples were collected four areas across the site; a 700m-long strike extension to the west-northwest from the discovery pegmatite, along the newly mapped fault-offset segment to the northeast, over the second parallel pegmatite and from the country rock adjacent to the pegmatite.

Impressively, of the 70 samples collected, 48 samples returned grades more than 1 percent lithium oxide.

Management says a maiden drilling program is slated to commence upon receival of state regulatory approvals and the completion of a heritage survey. In the meantime, field mapping continues in the area around Spear Hill aimed at identifying further pegmatite occurrences.

Additionally, Calidus says a review of all historic data is being undertaken that also includes reprocessing publicly available geophysical surveys, in its quest to identify further priority targets across its 1000 square kilometre Pirra tenure.

Calidus Resources’ Managing Director David Reeves said: “These strong assays show clearly that we have a significant lithium pegmatite with high grades. In light of these results, we are gearing up for a maiden drilling program later this quarter.”

“There is immense prospectivity across the large tenement package and rights owned by Pirra Lithium. Our exploration to date has only scratched the surface of a small part of the tenure.”

Pirra Lithium, an equal joint venture between Calidus and Haoma Mining NL, was founded in February to identify potential lithium assets in Western Australia's Pilbara area.

The Pilbara craton is shaping up to be one of the world’s major lithium and tantalum provinces housing the behemoth Wodgina and Pilgangoora lithium projects alongside Global Lithium’s nearby evolving Archer deposit.

The venture will allow Calidus to focus on its high-grade gold portfolio whilst still maintaining exposure to the developing lithium market that has set the market ablaze in recent times on the back of surging global demand to supply the electric vehicle industry.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au