Australian mining firm Maximus Resources Ltd recently began a reverse-circulation (RC) drill program at a site in Western Australia.
Located around 25 kilometers from the town of Kambalda, a longstanding mining settlement in the region, Maximus’ Lefroy Lithium Project is a joint venture with the Korea Mine Rehabilitation and Mineral Resources Corporation (KOMIR), a South Korean government-owned company.
KOMIR’s total investment in the project is pegged at $3 million, and it stands to earn around 30% interest from the joint venture. Consequently, Maximus will retain 70% at the end of the project’s farm-in period.
According to Maximus managing director Tim Wither, the first phase of the initiative will involve testing a lithium soil anomaly measuring 2 km x 1km with a notable number of outcropping pegmatites, a key source of raw lithium. Wither explained that, at present, drilling across Lefroy’s lithium anomaly and its surrounding pegmatites has been greatly limited.
As such, the drill program will follow a recently uncovered intersection of high-grade mineralization. This discovery, essentially a sequence of shallow-dip pegmatites naturally forming a stack, has been noted to have up to 2% lithium oxide. The said pegmatites range from six to twelve meters in terms of size.
Wither added that, concurrently, the company will continue to do systematic soil sampling in order to see if the area yields additional lithium pegmatites. This will also be instrumental for lining up new drill targets in the near future.
It is estimated that this initial phase will take at least three weeks to complete.
This recent development comes immediately after the Western Australian Government Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS)’s awarding of a co-funded drilling grant to Maximus, specifically for diamond drilling, last October 24th. The company expects that targets for diamond drilling will be updated once the initial RC drill program has been completed.
