Venari Minerals (ASX:VMS) has entered a binding option agreement to acquire a private property from American Battery Technology (NASDAQ:ABAT) proximal to its Red Mountain Lithium Project in Nevada, US.
The company will pay the vendor a total of US$400,000 ($603,048) through an option fee of 1.95 million shares in Venari, which equates to US$190,000 at a share price of $0.15, as well as a cash payment of US$210,000.
Venari will have 12 months to exercise the option, with the transaction to be complete by 7 December 2026.
The asset covers 45.7 hectares of private land with water rights totaling 592,000m3, located less than 6km from the project.
Venari is currently awaiting approval from the State of Nevada for the water rights to be relocated from the asset and closer to the Red Mountain Project.
Chairman Tony Leibowitz says Venari is positioning its Red Mountain Project to “move to the next level”.
“The company continues to rapidly derisk multiple facets of the Red Mountain Lithium Project, with metallurgical testwork for a lithium battery product underway, a maiden mineral resource estimate to be completed early in the coming quarter, and now substantial water rights secured by this option agreement,” Leibowitz says.
Meanwhile, Venari has returned assays from its September 2025 reverse circulation campaign at the Needles Gold Project, also located in Nevada.
Intercepts from the Whopper Junior prospect include up to 0.46 grams per tonne gold and 5.29g/t silver over 1.5m.
Venari intends to conduct deeper drilling campaigns to follow up on the anomalous gold and silver assays, with a program to be established in Q1 2026.
The company is currently reprocessing data from 2020-21 seismic and inductive polarisation surveys.
“While the September drilling campaign did not deliver economic grades, it has provided strong indications that there is excellent potential for a large-scale epithermal discovery at Needles,” Leibowitz adds.
“All the indications from the recent drilling, combined with historical data and geophysics, are that deeper drilling is required to unlock the full potential of this system.
“Importantly, the broad zone of anomalism intersected in the drilling shows similarities to the world-class Pajingo epithermal deposit in Queensland.”
Venari Minerals is a diversified mineral explorer focused primarily on lithium, gold, and silver in the US.
Write to Maddison Elliott at Mining.com.au
Images: Venari Minerals
