Spodumene mineralisation found in old drillcores

Our junior exploration Investment Ragusa Minerals (ASX: RAS) just put out an update on its lithium project in the Northern Territory.

The update was from an old drillcore - completed by the previous owners of the project May Drilling in 2019 - which confirmed a 25.5m pegmatite intercept at its Tank Hill prospect.

The Tank Hill prospect is outside of the area RAS recently drilled and has at least two thick pegmatite outcroppings that are ~63m apart.

RAS expects to include these targets in its next round of drilling here and is currently planning pre-drilling work to rank the highest priority drill locations.

The positive from today’s announcement is that the old drillcore confirmed spodumene presence - spodumene is usually the host for high grade lithium mineralisation and responsible for most of the lithium produced from hard rock projects around the world.

Effectively it proves RAS’ geological model and means the company is looking for lithium in the right place.

While the results show that RAS has the right type of rocks underground (from ~65m depth), the lithium grades are still relatively low and well below the ~1% level that is typically considered economic for hard rock lithium deposits.

What’s next for RAS?

We are waiting to see RAS put forward a forward exploration plan for its lithium project.

We hope that RAS Chair, Jerko Zuvela will eventually get it right, given his pedigree - he helped take Argosy Minerals (capped at $1BN) from explorer to late stage lithium developer.