Li-FT Power (TSXV: LIFT; US-OTC: LIFFF) reported on Tuesday one of its strongest assays yet of 1.34% lithium oxide (Li2O) over 35 metres at its Big East target near Yellowknife, as it eyes an initial resource for Q3.
Other highlight assays from this year’s winter drilling program at BIG East in the Northwest Territories were 28 metres grading 1.06% Li2O, including 10 metres at 1.69% Li2O and 3 metres at 1.59% Li2O in hole YLP-0251; 16 metres at 1.48% Li2O in hole YLP-0258; and 11 metres at 1.22% Li2O in YLP-0262.
Those results are from 2,227 metres drilled across 16 holes from the road-accessible BIG East, Fi Main and Big North targets, and from the more remote Echo target, 120 km east of Yellowknife.
“This week we saw the first holes back from the northeast end of the very impressive BIG-East pegmatite where YLP-0271 intercepted the best width, and highest grades drilled to date on the Big-E pegmatite,” Dave Smithson, senior vice-president geology with Li-FT, said in a news release.
“This hole marks the very most northeast limit of drilling and extends high-grade mineralization under the lake from the southwest for a total of 750 metres to date. We are very excited to see what happens next as we move our drill rigs up onto the ice and continue testing along the dyke for more high-grade lithium zones hidden by the lake.”
Resource planned
Li-FT, one of a handful of companies exploring for lithium near Hidden Lake, a territorial park popular with hikers and canoeists, plans more drilling in the coming months, with 70,000 metres targeted from the second quarter, and an initial resource by the third quarter, as CEO Francis MacDonald told The Northern Miner last November. Despite lithium prices remaining low compared to the levels of last July, exploration is ongoing across Canada for the critical mineral that is an essential component of electric vehicle batteries.
Significant assays from Li-FT’s Echo target include 14 metres at 1.02% Li2O in hole YLP-0246; 9 metres at 1.04% Li2O, including 4 metres at 1.98% Li2O in YLP-0240; and 6 metres grading 1.23% Li2O in YLP-0254.
The Big East pegmatite complex is made up of a north-northeast trending corridor of parallel-trending dykes which is exposed for at least 1.8 km of strike length, Li-FT says. It ranges from 10 to 100 metres wide.
The Echo complex comprises a fanning splay of moderate to gently dipping dykes for 500 metres to the northwest. On its east end, the Echo splay is connected to a steeply dipping, northwest-trending, feeder dyke, which has a total strike length of over 1 km.
Echo, which isn’t connected to an all-season road, is located just northeast of Vital Metals’ (ASX: VML; US-OTC: VTMXF) Nechalacho rare earths project.
Its winter drilling program now complete, Li-FT says it has drilled 49,548 metres across 286 holes since the summer. Li-FT shares were down 1.1% to $3.31 apiece on Tuesday at mid-day, valuing the company at $130.4 million. Its shares have traded in a 52-week range of $2.60 and $7.15.
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