Frontier Lithium drills 144 metres of 1.72% Li2O at Spark pegmatite

Frontier Lithium (TSXV: FL; US-OTC: LITOF) has released results for four drill holes completed at the Spark pegmatite, part of the company’s PAK lithium property located north of Red Lake, Ont.

The current drill program began in May 2022 and is still in progress. The initial drill holes were designed to quickly convert the inferred resource within the central portion of the Spark deposit to the indicated category for the planned open pit. To date, Frontier has completed 7,000 metres of drilling in 22 holes.

Results from the latest four holes are as follows:

• DDH PL-057-22 intersected 10 metres of 2.54% Cs₂O (assumed to be pollucite) within a high-grade (3.14% Li₂O) spodumene zone from 149.5 to 159.5 metres. A highly enriched 15-metre tantalum-rubidium zone was also intersected beneath the cesium zone.
• DDH PL-058-22 intersected 239.4 metres of pegmatite from 58.1 to 297.4 metres grading 1.3% Li₂O with 16- to 18-metre zones just over 2% Li₂O.
• DDH PL-063-22 was collared in pegmatite intersecting 144 metres averaging 1.72% Li₂O.
• DDH PL-064-22 intersected 132.9 metres of pegmatite from 114.1 to 247 metres grading 1.33% Li₂O.

All four holes were terminated in pegmatite, with the company citing the need to quickly upgrade some of the existing inferred resource to include in a prefeasibility study under way. The holes will be extended later in the program. 

“The exciting presence of the cesium mineral pollucite in the lithium zone intersected in DDH PL-057-22 suggests the Spark pegmatite is well evolved mineralogically, and may be approaching the degree of fractionation attained by the prolific Tanco pegmatite at Bernic Lake, Man., where high-grade pollucite zones occur,” Garth Drever, VP exploration of Frontier Lithium, commented in a press release.

“High fractionation could result in furthering the potential byproducts beyond lithium and tantalum. During the remainder of the Phase XII drilling, we intend to investigate this new pegmatite zone to the north and west with significant lithium, cesium, tantalum and rubidium content.”

Two drill rigs are currently at work completing infill and delineation drilling defining the eastern part of the deposit and defining the western extensions.

Discovered in 2019, the Spark deposit contains indicated resources of 14.4 million tonnes averaging 1.4% Li₂O (lithium oxide) and inferred resources of 18.1 million tonnes averaging 1.37% Li₂O.

Spark is one of the two premium spodumene-bearing deposits Frontier has delineated on the PAK project. The other, the PAK deposit, which is located 2.3 km away, has measured and indicated resources of 5.4 million tonnes grading 1.99% lithium oxide (open pit) and 1.3 million tonnes grading 2.15% lithium oxide (underground).

Last year, the company produced a preliminary economic assessment for the PAK project that examined a fully integrated lithium operation. The US$685-million project was given an after-tax net present value (with an 8% discount) of US$974 million and an internal rate of return of 21%.