St George spies lithium from maiden drill campaign

On-site analysis of assays from St George Mining’s RC drill program at its Mt Alexander project near Leonora has identified visible lithium mineralisation from pegmatites at the company’s Jailbreak prospect.

The explorer has struck multiple pegmatite intervals up to 13m thick from surface with lithium-bearing minerals visually identified in drill chips from the current 20-hole campaign.

A second hole recorded a 7m pegmatite interval whilst four more drill holes recorded pegmatite hits at 5m in width.

St George says the RC program is the first phase of exploration that aims to test six outcropping pegmatite dykes at Jailbreak across two exploration licences. A total of 10 holes have been completed so far at the site across 945m with two significant target areas identified for ongoing drilling. The focus zones include a 1.7km section of the north-south trending ultramafic sequence that hosts stacked pegmatites and a more than 3km east-west corridor.

The prospect has been a high-priority target for the company after analysis of its first batch of 10 samples last month returned grades as high as 2.72 per cent lithium oxide. Other notable rock chip results include 1.97 per cent, 1.15 per cent, 1.68 per cent and 2.72 per cent lithium oxide.

St George has now received results from the second batch of rock chips that have returned even higher grades with a standout sample recording 3.25 per cent lithium oxide. Additional results included 1.89 per cent, 1.35 per cent and 1.24 per cent lithium oxide.

A total of 13 rock chip samples showed grades above 1 per cent lithium oxide across five pegmatite dykes. The company says the outcrop spans a 1.7km zone and confirms the prospectivity of the Jailbreak prospect. St George has submitted more than 100 samples to the laboratory with further results still pending.

St George Mining Executive Chairman, John Prineas said: “Exciting news is starting to emerge from our first-ever lithium drill programme at the Jailbreak prospect which – though still at an early stage – has already confirmed the near-surface continuity of lithium-bearing pegmatites.”

In addition to lithium, St George says Mt Alexander is known to host high-grade nickel in other parts of the Yilgarn Craton, including the Flying Fox and Spotted Quoll deposits at Forrestania. Last month the company unearthed a raft of nickel sulphide targets including a large electromagnetic conductor that has been identified as another priority drilling prospect.

The fixed loop electromagnetic survey unearthed a large conductor, dubbed “P1”, roughly 4km south of the Cathedrals nickel-copper-platinum group elements massive sulphide deposit on the Cathedrals Belt. The Cathedrals, Stricklands, Investigators and Radar discoveries are part of a joint venture between St George and IGO subsidiary Western Areas. The joint venture also includes one of the exploration licences at the Jailbreak prospect.

St George says the current drilling program at Mt Alexander will increase in scope next week with diamond drilling scheduled to commence alongside the ongoing RC campaign targeting both lithium and nickel deposits.

The explorer looks to be closing out the year with a flurry of both sampling and drilling results on the cards in coming months. The market will be keeping a close eye on upcoming headlines to see if St George can continue its high-grade sampling assays with results from the drill bit.

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