Newly ASX-listed Chariot Corporation has embarked on an initial diamond drill program to hunt for hard-rock, pegmatite-hosted lithium oxide at its flagship Black Mountain project in central Wyoming.
The company is well positioned as the biggest landholder of lithium exploration assets in the United States and has a wealth of prospective ground spread through Wyoming and the Nevada-Oregon area. It listed on the ASX last month and has 149 million shares issued, a market cap of about $52 million and says it has $10 million in its kick.
After securing drill site permitting approval from the US Bureau of Land Management, Chariot completed environment-friendly earthworks and other preparations at Black Mountain, including access road negotiations with local stakeholders, and has now kicked off first-pass diamond drill testing.
The company, through its US-based subsidiary Panther Lithium, is planning a thorough 23-hole drill program of between 2000m and 3000m to target a 1km-long by 50m to 150m-wide area containing an outcropping, spodumene-bearing lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatite dyke swarm.
Chariot Corporation managing director Shanthar Pathmanathan said: “The arrival of the drill rig at Black Mountain signals the start of an exciting new phase for the Company and for hard rock lithium exploration in Wyoming. We believe that Black Mountain may represent a generational hard rock lithium opportunity in the heartland of the continental United States. Black Mountain features an excellent combination of geological factors, a supportive regulatory regime and is located in a largely unpopulated part of Wyoming.”
The company’s prior surface rock-chip sampling at Black Mountain returned a whopping high of 6.68 per cent lithium oxide, with 22 samples averaging an eye-catching 2.16 per cent and 10 of them containing greater than 7000 parts per million lithium (1.51 per cent lithium oxide).
Chariot is using experienced drill contractor Major Drilling and a Boart Longyear LF90 surface diamond core drill rig on a 24-hour per day, seven days a week basis, weather permitting. The diamond drill core will undergo detailed lithological, geochemical, geological, geotechnical and structural analysis off-site at the company’s Jeffrey City processing facility in Wyoming.
Aside from its seven hard-rock lithium projects in Wyoming that cover 4462 hectares in 577 claim titles, Chariot is also exploring for claystone-hosted lithium at its Resurgent project that sits in the famed McDermitt Caldera in Nevada and extends into neighbouring Oregon. The McDermitt Caldera already hosts the two biggest lithium resources discovered to-date – Thacker Pass (19 million tonnes lithium carbonate) and McDermitt (21.5 million tonnes lithium carbonate).
Chariot is clearly now leading the exploration race for both hard-rock and claystone-hosted lithium oxide in the US. So the initial assay results from the current Black Mountain diamond drill program due early in the New Year, should create plenty of intrigue.
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By Rohan Halfpenny
