Prospect strikes high-grade lithium

PROSPECT Resources says it is pleased with the final outcome from its phase 3 drilling at Step Aside last year, which has unearthed high-grade lithium deposits.

The Australia Stock Exchange-listed mining group is developing the Step Aside Lithium project in Goromonzi.

“We are very pleased with the final outcomes from the phase 3 drilling completed at Step Aside last year,” Prospect managing director and chief executive officer Sam Hosack said in a shareholder update yesterday.

“The WinBin discovery has continued to return exceptional intercepts, demonstrating its high-grade character and delivering ongoing growth in its strike and depth extents.”

He added: “The commencement of phase 4 drilling at Step Aside is another significant milestone, with this programme targeted to test the potential continuation of the WinBin strike extent to the south, as well as testing in the area of the high-grade intersections previously returned around Pegmatite E further north.

“We look forward to keeping shareholders abreast of further key advancements at Step Aside over the coming year.”

The firm said the completion of the phase 3 programme and return of all assays had further demonstrated that the thickened, deep set, lithium mineralisation defined at the WinBin deposit inflects and cojoins an extension to Pegmatite C, and forms an arcuate system striking over at least 580 metres, which is open at depth.

WinBin is hosted in a metasedimentary rock sequence, which effectively “refracts” or causes it to change direction to the northwest at the contact with mafic sequences that form the main Colga Hill at Step Aside.

By inference, the phase 3 programme has shown that WinBin “feeds” the pegmatite swarm further north, defined during the earlier phases 1 and 2 drill campaigns completed by Prospect.

Assay results were also returned from a number of holes (including re-entries) targeting Pegmatite C, northwest of WinBin.

While the results show narrower intersections than the feeder system, Prospect said they indicated that Step Aside continued to return high lithium grades close to the surface.

The newly-returned results have consolidated the company’s 3D interpretation of the WinBin mineralisation and have helped to refine the phase 4 diamond drilling programme, which is underway.

In 2022, the mining group sold the Arcadia lithium project, to China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Limited, one of the world’s largest energy Li-ion battery materials and new cobalt materials, for US$377,8 million.

Lithium is now one of the most important minerals due to its growing use in rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras and electric vehicles.

The resource is also used in some non-rechargeable batteries for things like heart pacemakers, toys and clocks.

Lithium has become one of the strategically important commodities in Zimbabwe, as export revenue from the mineral is expected to drive economic growth.-newsday