Pursuit Minerals (ASX:PUR) has started exploration drilling at the Rio Grande Sur Lithium Project following the granting of environmental permits and commissioning of drill rigs.
The initial phase of the drilling program has now commenced on site at the Rio Grande Sur Project with earthworks and mobilisation of rigs underway.
Pursuit Minerals says the drilling contractor and operations crew have mobilised, and pre-drilling preparations are underway with works including drilling platform construction as well as road clearing and construction currently being completed at both the Maria Magdelena and Sal Rio II tenements.
The drilling crew and geological team are expected to mobilise in the current week to join the crew on site once camp preparations are complete. At this juncture, the drilling of DDH1 at Maria Magdelena will begin.
The maiden drilling program will comprise an initial 4 diamond drill holes at the Salar tenements, with a pumping well to also be drilled following initial results from the first 2 holes to be drilled at Sal Rio II and Maria Magdelena.
Pursuit says the drilling is anticipated to reach depths of 500-600m below surface, significantly deeper than the existing defined JORC mineral resource depth.
Each hole is anticipated to take approximately 1 month to complete with the program length. Pursuit is targeting a material resource upgrade in 2024 which will build on the recent maiden resource defined at the Rio Grande Sur Project.
Pursuit Managing Director and CEO Aaron Revelle says the company expects these upcoming results to cement the Rio Grande Sur Project as a significant high-grade pre-production lithium project.
“With the first hole set to be drilled following the initial maiden JORC inferred resource, we believe that there is great potential for significant upside to be uncovered. The current round of drilling will target the known lithium brine mineralisation identified from historical drilling in addition to our own geophysical surveys carried out in 2023.
Whilst the Lithium market has been subdued over the end of 2023 and start of 2024, Lithium brine projects remain robust, profitable, and attractive in these market conditions. Lithium brine projects continue to be profitable with lithium carbonate prices at $8,000-$12,000 USD per tonne. With marginal high-cost production now coming out of the market, we expect prices to rebound over the medium to long term as high-cost supply becomes unprofitable and withdraws from the market.
We continue to progress with permitting for our stage two drilling program in the north of the Rio Grande Sur Project which we hope to commence later in 2024, in addition to works at our Lithium Carbonate Pilot Plant which remains on track to commence operations in the first half of 2024.”
The Rio Grande Sur Lithium Project comprises of 5 tenements covering 9,260 hectares at the Rio Grande Salar at the province of Salta, Argentina The Rio Grande salar has benefited from historical exploration including CSAMT geophysical surveys which identified Lithium enriched brines to a depth of 500m and Shallow diamond drilling to 100m which yielded an Ni43-101 resource.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Pursuit
