Join our daily newsletter At The Bell to receive exclusive market insights
- Lithium explorer, Liontown Resources has significantly increased its Mineral Resource Estimate for its Kathleen Valley Project in WA
- The MRE now includes 139 million tonnes at 1.3 per cent lithium oxide and 140 parts per million tantalum pentoxide
- This is an 86 per cent increase compared to the MRE announced in July 2019
- Drilling is ongoing at Kathleen Valley to expand the resource and prepare a definitive feasibility study
- Liontown is up 6.06 per cent, with shares trading for 10.5 cents each
Liontown Resources has substantially increased the Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for its Kathleen Valley Lithium-Tantalum Project in Western Australia.
The MRE now comprises 139 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.3 per cent lithium oxide and 140 parts per million (ppm) tantalum pentoxide.
The updated MRE represents an 86 per cent increase compared to the July 2019 Mineral Resource of 74.9 million tonnes at 1.3 per cent lithium oxide and 130 parts per million tantalum pentoxide.
Additionally, the MRE now includes 1.8 million tonnes of contained lithium oxide and 43 million pounds of tantalum pentoxide.
Using the Lithium Carbonate Equivalent (LCE) measure, the resource contains 4.5 million tonnes of LCE. This underlines Kathleen Valley’s position as one of the few new, significant lithium projects being developed in the short term.
“Once again, Kathleen Valley has delivered for Liontown shareholders. With the recent results from extensional drilling, it became apparent that we were on track to materially exceed our published Exploration Target,” Managing Director David Richards said.
Liontown prepared this interim MRE data following a successful drilling program conducted at its wholly-owned lithium project.
On February 5, Liontown announced outstanding assay results, including 3.8 per cent lithium oxide over 10.4 metres and 2 per cent lithium oxide over 33.4 metres.
In-fill drilling to define the mineralised system is continuing at the project with up to five drill rigs currently operating.
“Importantly, this is not the end of the story in terms of the growth of this deposit,” David added.
Liontown hopes to increase the percentage of the Measured and Indicated material which might be turned into Ore Reserves and also expand the resource even further.
The drilling program will be completed by the end of this month. The results will be used to prepare an MRE, which will include open pit and underground resources, scheduled for March 2020. It will also help to provide for the best possible outcome for a definitive feasibility study (DFS).
“Based on the success of our drilling, we are increasingly confident that the DFS will encapsulate both a high-grade underground mine in parallel with an open pit,” he stated.
Liontown is up 6.06 per cent, with shares trading for 10.5 cents each at 11:07 am AEDT.
