Cygnus Metals (ASX:CY5) has brought a second drilling rig to its Auclair Lithium Project in Quebec, Canada, to help follow up on a ‘breakthrough’ August discovery.
The $51.29 million market capitalisation company says it’s accelerating exploration at the project, which lies in the prolific James Bay region, to test multiple target areas simultaneously.
Last month, Cygnus reported the discovery of an 80m long and 9m wide spodumene-bearing pegmatite outcrop in the project area. This follows the discovery of spodumene-bearing boulders back in July, and Cygnus says its exploration work so far has opened up a 1.9km prospective corridor for exploration.
With two diamond rigs now on-site, Cygnus aims to confirm mineralisation at depth in the area and step out from the corridor along-strike.
The company has already completed a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) survey over the project, which it says could be an additional tool in uncovering further outcrop that may be concealed beneath vegetation.
Speaking on the accelerated exploration program, Cygnus Managing Director David Southam says: “We are aiming to understand the opportunity at Auclair as quickly as possible by putting two rigs on what is already known to be a mineralised spodumene-bearing corridor.
Combined with LiDAR and other activities, we look forward to testing this discovery and receiving the assays taken from channel sampling.”
The company’s drilling work will initially target the newly discovered outcropping across the 1.9km prospective corridor before stepping out to confirm the scale of mineralisation in the area.
Cygnus’ Auclair project lies on the same greenstone belt and 60km east of Critical Elements Lithium Corporation’s (CVE:CRE) Rose deposit, which boasts a resource of 34.2 million tonnes @ 0.9% Li2O, and 50km northeast of the Whabouchi mine, which is owned by Nemaska Lithium.
Cygnus Metals is a critical minerals explorer with assets in Quebec and Western Australia.
The company launched an $11.1 million capital raise in August, which it said would bolster its cash position to just shy of $16 million to fund its summer exploration work.
Write to Joshua Smith at Mining.com.au
Images: Cygnus Metals
