Octava Minerals has spotted visible signs of the critical mineral, antimony, in drill holes at the company’s Yallalong project that sits in the Mid West region of WA, with assays due early next year.
Drilling is nearly complete at the company’s Discovery prospect with the rig then set to move to its Central antimony prospect for a maiden nine-hole program to depths of about 120m.
The company says its latest planned 3000m reverse-circulation drill program is on track with 75 per cent of drill-holes completed at Discovery, where its field crew has observed promising visible antimony mineralisation from the drilling.
Previous historical drilling at the prospect returned a 7m hit grading a significant 3.27 per cent antimony from 12m, which included 1m going 11.5 per cent antimony from 18m and a 3m slice at 6.83 per cent antimony from 21m including 1m at 13.6 per cent from 22m.
Management’s plan is to test the previously undrilled Central target when activities are completed at Discovery.
It says two metallurgical test holes were recently drilled at the company’s Byro rare earths and lithium project, with samples to be submitted shortly for chemical analysis to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial research Organisation (CSIRO).
The CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, will conduct mineral studies on the core samples to determine the likely recovery levels of the critical minerals, an important component of any future feasibility studies.
Octava Minerals managing director Bevan Wakelam said: “Drilling is going well at our Discovery antimony prospect and progressing as planned. The team onsite has observed antimony mineralisation in drill holes at the Discovery target, which we will get to the laboratory for determination of antimony grades. The results are expected to be available early in the new year. We are also looking forward to testing the second antimony target at the Central target, which has not been drilled tested before.”
Management says Yallalong’s antimony mineralisation appears to trend along a 10km north-south striking corridor interpreted to be related to a structural belt between the regional scale Darling and Woodrarung faults.
Previous exploration has identified four antimony targets where mineralisation outcrops at surface. Notably, only the Discovery prospect has been subjected to drilling.
The company revealed yesterday it has agreed to sell its seven-tenement Talga gold base metals and lithium project to ASX-listed Global Lithium for $200,000 cash and a further $200,000 in Global Lithium stock. The share consideration will be based on Global’s five-day volume-weighted average price prior to completion.
Octava believes the transaction with Global provides the best opportunity to unlock the potential gold and base metals resource at Talga, while retaining upside exposure to the project via Global shares, in addition to the future prospects for Global’s Marble Bar and Manna lithium project’s in WA's Pilbara region.
Global Lithium has defined total mineral resources at its two lithium projects of 69.6 million tonnes grading 1 per cent lithium oxide, which paves the way for Octava to benefit from any lithium renaissance from the expected future uptake in electric-vehicles and clean energy applications.
For now, however, it is all about antimony which has been on a stellar run of late after Tuesday’s announcement from China that it will place an immediate export ban on the specialised metal to the United States.
The rationale for Octava to sell off Talga is to allow for the company to fully focus on making its antimony project a winner - potentially a smart financial move with the antimony price supercharged to a recent high of US$37,500 (A$58,250) per tonne.
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