MAN permitting another well at US Lithium Project

Our exploration Investment Mandrake Resources (ASX: MAN) is gearing up to drill its US-based lithium project.

MAN’s project sits in the same neighbourhood as $212M ASX listed Anson Resources.

MAN holds ~2x more ground then Anson - for context Anson’s project sits on ~167km^2, MAN’s project sits on ~379km^2 of ground.

MAN has been going through a three staged exploration process to get its project to a maiden JORC resource.

Here is what MAN has done so far on its US lithium project, and what MAN is working toward:

• Increased the size of its project ✅ - MAN has already increased its ground position to 88,096 acres (~356km^2). For context, Anson’s project sits on 167km^2 of ground so MAN’s project area is actually bigger.
• Access to historic data ✅ - MAN has existing data from old oil and gas wells, geological data and 3D seismic data. Historic wells ~6km away from MAN’s project intercepted lithium grades of ~340mg/Li. For context, Anson’s JORC resource has a grade of ~127mg/Li.
• Access to old oil and gas wells ✅ - MAN recently signed a well access agreement and now has entry rights into 84 historic oil and gas wells at a fraction of the cost of drilling new wells. MAN has already picked out two high-priority wells to re-enter over the coming months.
• Sample the old wells for lithium 🔄 - MAN plans to re-enter two wells to sample for lithium instead of oil and gas.
• Maiden JORC resource 🔲 - hopefully, the sampling delivers good results and MAN is able to define its own maiden JORC resource estimate.

The focus for MAN has always been on re-entering old oil & gas wells because they cost a lot less then drilling new wells.

While the focus is on re-entering two old wells, MAN also started working on permitting for a new well which means if it decides to drill its own well it wont have to wait for permitting to get done.

What’s next for MAN?

In the short term, we want to see MAN complete the permitting for its two-well re-entry program.

After the re-entry is completed we will get a better idea of the size/scale of MAN’s project.

We are also keeping one eye on MAN finding a potential DLE technology partner, but understand that the company’s key priority is to deliver a maiden JORC resource.