Oar Resources (ASX:OAR) has soared on the ASX today (3 November) after announcing it has signed a binding option term sheet with privately held companies Denchi and First Standard Minerals to acquire a lithium project in Western Australia.
The project is located near Wiluna and is targeting pegmatite hosted lithium mineralisation, with initial indications pointing to the existence of lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatites, the same host rock found out Talison’s Greenbushes operation.
Talison Lithium and its predecessor companies have been producing lithium at Greenbushes since 1983 and the region is recognised as containing the world’s highest grade and largest hard rock deposit of lithium mineral spodumene. Greenbushes is also the longest continuously operated mining region in Western Australia.
Speaking to Mining.com.au on the sidelines of the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in Sydney today, Exploration Manager Ross Cameron said the market has reacted strongly to the announcement as it’s an awesome asset near already established large lithium deposits.
“It was sitting there quietly and no one was paying any attention to it.”
The company’s share price skyrocketed 20% as of 2.30pm AEDT on the back of the announcement.
Cameron told Mining.com.au: “As soon as I saw the brief come through, I saw there were some historic lithium numbers and it immediately piqued our attention. I knew that we needed to look at this asset a bit further and there hadn’t been any other exploration on the tenement.
I got a team out there straight away and mobilised them as soon as we could, confirmed the rocks are there and that they are pegmatites. We then took some confirmatory rock chip samples and we’ll see how they go as they’re now at the laboratory.”
According to the exploration manager, Oar Resources will be systematic in its exploration approach at the lithium project, which he says will be back to basics with “Geology 101”.
The project covers a combined area of 217.7km-square across a granted tenement and 2 tenement applications.
It is located about 50km west of Wiluna in the Norther Goldfields of Western Australia, just 120km northwest of Liontown Resources’ Kathleen Valley lithium deposit, which holds a Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) of 156Mt at 1.4% Li2O and 130ppm Ta2O5.
Oar Resources is an ASX-listed precious metals explorer and aspiring producer. Oar, through its wholly owned subsidiary Lymex Tenements, holds a number of tenements on the South Australian Eyre Peninsular which are considered highly prospective for halloysite and kaolinite mineralisation, graphite, nickel, zinc, and iron ore.
Oar has previously acquired 100% of the Alpine Resources gold exploration projects in the highly prospective gold province of Nevada, US, also ranked the third best mining jurisdiction in the world. The 3 projects are in an area that hosts several multi-million-ounce deposits. Oar has also acquired 100% of Australian Precious Minerals, holder of the Crown Project in Western Australia. Crown is situated near the Julimar polymetallic discovery.
Oar’s Peruvian subsidiary Ozinca Peru SAC, owns a CIP Gold lixiviation plant, strategically located proximal to thousands of small gold miners in Southern Peru.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
