Resource drilling at Latin Resources Ltd (ASX:LRS)’s 100%-owned and fully funded Salinas Lithium Project in Brazil continues to deliver substantial results from an aggressive exploration campaign as the company heads towards a resource upgrade in June.
Drilling has confirmed the extension of the high-grade pegmatite swarm over an area of approximately one kilometre by one kilometre to a depth of 400 metres below surface.
Importantly, it remains open in all directions and has provided Latin with increased confidence of the potential to significantly grow the existing 13.2 million tonnes at 1.2% Li2O mineral resource estimate.
Site inspections of the new drill core have been done by SGS geological consultants including the 33.07 metres at 1.83% Li2O pegmatite intersected in SADD077, in preparation for the MRE update. The re-estimation by SGS for the Colina and Colina West areas is expected to be completed in June 2023.
Drill hole SADD077: 33.05 metres at 1.83% Li2O from 319.53 metres.
Highlights of the latest results include:
- SADD078 - 14 metres at 1.55% Li2O from 323 metres including 5 metres at 1.99% Li2O from 323 metres;
- SADD080 - 12.59 metres at 1.46% Li2O from 274.46 metres;
- SADD081 - 16.92 metres at 1.36% Li2O from 242.48 metres; and
- SADD082 - 27.15 metres at 1.45% Li2O from 237 metres.
Drill section A-A’ showing the existing Colina MRE block model, and selected pegmatite intersections.
Drilling delivers “great results”
Latin has so far drilled a total of 32,000 metres in 109 diamond drill holes at the flagship Colina project, with drilling continuing before the company pivots to Salinas South during the next quarter.
“We continue to see great results coming out of the resource definition drilling at our Colina Deposit," Latin Resources’ geology manager Tony Greenaway said.
"The consistency in both the pegmatite thickness and lithium grades is extremely encouraging, bolstering our confidence to be able to deliver what we believe will be a significant upgrade to the Colina mineral resource in June.
“We are very focused on finding the extents of the rapidly growing system at Colina, where the pegmatite swarm remains open in all directions.
"Drilling is progressing very well, and we are on track to close off our drilling database in mid-May to enable the JORC resource estimation process to commence in June.”
Aggressive exploration to continue
The current drilling program is part of a large and aggressive exploration campaign for the wider Salinas Lithium Project.
The well-budgeted campaign will see around 65,000 metres drilled this year, with, the company to add a further four diamond drilling rigs, taking the total rigs onsite to eight, operating on a double shift basis.
Six of the eight rigs are now drilling 24 hours a day at the newly discovered Colina West prospect, to ensure the resource upgrade planned for June is completed on time.
Latin is encouraged by the fact that Colina West and Colina are part of one large pegmatite swarm. These projects will now be referred to as Colina and the company will continue to review and update the Colina resource model wireframes as more drilling information becomes available.
Drilling planned at Salinas South
The resource update at Colinas is not the only focus for Latin, which has also completed regional mapping activities around the Salinas South tenement approximately 17 kilometres to the southwest of Colina.
Salinas South was the location of the previous seasons’ exploration work identified a ‘lithium corridor’ extending across 4 kilometres.
Salinas South tenement showing soil sampling results.
Latin finalised soil sampling at the back end of 2022, which highlighted an area of anomalous lithium in the northeast of the tenement. New mapping identified initial drill targets where Latin will start drilling in May/June.
Next round of metallurgical test-work
Latin is also close to completing final selection of a representative bulk sample for the next round of metallurgical test-work.
The company will drill a large diameter PQ size drill core in late May and proposed test-work will follow on from the existing Heavy Liquid Separation test-work which returned recoveries of more than 80.5% of lithium recovered in a concentrate grading up to 6.6% Li2O.
Latin recently checked in on the SGS Lakefield laboratory in Canada to evaluate their Dense Media Separation (DMS) pilot plant, with the next phase of planned work to include multiple full DMS pilot-scale tests, fines flotation test-work, and hydrometallurgical lithium conversion test-work to produce lithium hydroxide and lithium sulphate products from the raw Colina pegmatite feed.
All of this work is intended to be made available for the upcoming definitive feasibility study.
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