Lithium Australia’s joint venture partner Charger Metals is poised to fire up the drill rig at its Medcalf prospect, part of the larger Lake Johnston project about 450km east of Perth in WA after confirming a significant lithium system at the site. The looming campaign will follow work at its nearby Coates and Bynoe projects where an imminent delivery of drilling approvals is expected.

Charger says it has got the ball rolling on the statutory approval process to tap Medcalf’s spodumene-bearing pegmatite target zone that contains a suite of mineralised outcrops stretching over 500m in strike length.

Spodumene is seen as an important source of lithium and is known to host high-grade concentrations of up to 8 per cent lithium oxide.

According to the company, rock chips bagged in an earlier sampling program at Medcalf delivered a suite of solid sampling grading up to about 5 per cent lithium oxide.

Charger says Medcalf is its most advanced target and the company has indicated the prospect could meet the drill bit early next year – once all the red tape and regulatory hoops have been navigated.

The looming probe could see as many as 40 holes sunk into Medcalf’s highly prospective battery metals ground and with high-grade rock chips and a network of spodumene-bearing outcrops to follow up on, the company looks to have plenty to play for.

The Medcalf spodumene prospect was first discovered in 2018 through reconnaissance fieldwork that included soil geochemistry, mapping and rock-chip analysis in an area north-east of Lake Medcalf in WA.

The program led to the detection of a spodumene-bearing pegmatite swarm that consisted of about 20 pegmatite dykes running up to 800m long and 300m wide.

A subsequent soil geochemistry program completed this year extended the lithium anomaly at Medcalf further north into an area where pegmatite-derived sands and minor outcrops hint at a sub-parallel zone north-east of the main Medcalf pegmatite swarm.

According to the company, the recent geochemistry program extended the halo of the lithium anomaly further north into an area speckled with pegmatite-derived sands and minor outcrops north-east of the prospect’s main pegmatite swarm.

The Lake Johnston project contains the company’s Medcalf spodumene prospect along with the Mount Day lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatite field. Both zones are prospective for lithium and tantalum mineralisation.

Lithium Australia has a 30 per cent stake in the project after selling off a 70 per cent interest to Charger last year in a deal that saw the former bank $100,000 and claim a majority shareholding position.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au

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