Horizon Minerals Ltd (ASX:HRZ) is set to pick up a 100% interest in two greenfield lithium prospects near Bridgetown, less than 20 kilometres from the world-class Greenbushes Lithium Mine in Western Australia.
The deal comes after Horizon entered into a binding share sale agreement with private company Charter Minerals Pty Ltd to purchase the prospects, in exchange for $75,000 in cash and 4 million ordinary HRZ shares.
Significant ground position
The company sees this as an opportunity to secure a significant ground position in one of Western Australia’s most attractive and active lithium mining regions.
The two acquired projects are on granted exploration licences E70/5980 and E70/5981, 5 kilometres north and 10 kilometres southwest of Bridgetown respectively and cover a total area of 33 square kilometres.
They are situated along strike from the world-class Greenbushes mine, as well as the Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB) tenements recently purchased from Lithium Power International for $30 million cash, and Galan Lithium Ltd (ASX:GLN)’s Greenbushes South project.
The area boasts favourable geology and structure, particularly the regional 20-odd-kilometre-wide Bridgetown-Donnybrook shear zone which hosts the giant Greenbushes tin-tantalum-lithium deposit and continues south for another 20 kilometres where it passes adjacent to E70/5981.
Closer to Bridgetown, this shear zone also hosts the Smithfield pegmatite (tin-tantalum) field only 4 kilometres west of E70/5981, where the pegmatites are up to 35 metres wide. The company will be exploring the newly acquired tenure in the hopes of finding repetitions of such pegmatites.
More tenements in works
To bolster this new lithium footprint, Horizon has also applied for four new exploration licences in proximity to the Charter tenements, covering a total of 15 square kilometres.
The company has also applied for an additional tenement 40 kilometres northeast of Bridgetown, covering some 214 square kilometres, which contains a number of historical and anomalous soil results that could be related to pegmatite intrusives.
The Bridgetown-Greenbushes package has received little modern exploration and a process of data acquisition, compilation and review is being conducted ahead of initial field work.
“We are very pleased to have acquired and pegged this prospective ground in a world class lithium province with strong potential for pegmatite-hosted lithium mineralisation,” CEO Grant Haywood said.
“We continually assess opportunities to add value accretive projects to the business and moved quickly to secure this low cost opportunity when it presented.
“These projects build upside and diversification to our portfolio of gold and silver-zinc projects with minimal distraction from our current focus.
“We will progress these projects in parallel with our commitment to transitioning to a gold producer in early 2024, commencing from our Cannon underground gold project.”
What’s next?
The new prospects are very early stage, but they conceptually demonstrate good prospectivity.
Horizon is currently reviewing and compiling all historic GSWA literature around Bridgetown and intends to fast track the lithium exploration potential and complete a reconnaissance sampling and mapping program this quarter.
A land management specialist will be appointed to help facilitate community and government stakeholder engagement.