The updated MRE was prepared in accordance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 (Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects) ('NI-43-101'). As per the Gross Overriding Royalty Agreement ('Royalty Agreement') with the
Highlights: Based on a further 2,355.20m of sonic drilling, completed in 2023, Bradda Head has added 729 kt of Lithium Carbonate Equivalent ('LCE') to the Inferred Mineral Resource, for an updated total Inferred LCE content of 1.0 Mt. The total new Mineral Resource now comprises 17.0 million tonnes in the Indicated category at 940 ppm carrying 85kt LCE and 210 million tonnes in the Inferred category at 900 ppm, carrying 1,000 kt LCE
As per the Royalty Agreement, BHL has formally requested payment of US
The continued step out drilling success at Basin East Extension and Basin North has increased the Company's confidence levels in achieving the next milestone of 2.5Mt of LCE in situ, that enables BHL to receive a further
SRK applied a new cut off grade of 550ppm Li to report Mineral Resources and demonstrate reasonable prospects of eventual economic extraction ('RPEEE'). This cut off grade is higher than the cut-off grade used to report the previous Mineral Resource (300 ppm; effective
The average in situ grade of the Inferred Basin East Mineral Resource has increased from 694 to 900 ppm Li, a 30% increase.
The results of the 2023 drilling programme demonstrate extensive lateral continuity of the Basin East clay package as well as impressive consistency in the stratigraphic position and grade profile of a high-grade clay-rich sub-unit, over an approximately 2.7 x1.8 km area. It's important to note that the Upper Clay Unit includes a continuous High-Grade layer which has an average grade of some 1,300 ppm Li, and is on average 15m thick. This higher-grade portion of the Upper Clay Unit is strategic as it could potentially form part of a phased mining processing operation and would clearly enhance early stages of mining and overall project economics.
Mineralisation is open to the north of the MRE model in the Basin East and Basin North license blocks, and geological mapping, surface Li samples. Geological mapping and geophysical surveys indicate that similar clay strata may also be present across the majority of the Basin West license block. The previous drilled area only covered 1.4km2 of Bradda's total 41km2 of sedimentary claims in Basin and
SRK were selected to complete the Mineral Resource Update analysis and applied a stringent approach to both the in-situ density measurement and the cut off grade utilised. A lower in situ density and higher cut off grade than previously reported resulted in a more robust estimate. A significant and pragmatic building block to develop the on-going test-work plan.
The full study completed by SRK will be available on the Company's website and SEDAR before
'We believe that 2024 is going to be another exciting year of resource growth for Bradda Head, hopefully in both projects areas - San Domingo Pegmatites and the Basin Clays. We remain well funded, even more so following the royalty payment. More drilling is already planned at Basin North and Basin West upon receipt of the Environmental Assessment ('EA') from the BLM in H2 2024. The area we are permitting is over 11km2, which is considerably larger than BE, BEE, and BN combined (c.6km2). BHL is excellently placed to take full advantage of the near-term resource growth potential at our sedimentary lithium assets in
'We have a compelling 12 months ahead with what we believe are a number of material catalysts and we look forward to providing further updates in 2023, including our ongoing work at our San Domingo Pegmatite district as well as in 2024 in what we believe is going to be another exciting year of resource growth for Bradda both at San Domingo and Basin.'
Mineral Resource Estimation
The updated 2023 Mineral Resource Estimate ('MRE') at Basin authored by
SRK has applied basic technical and economic assumptions for open pit mining (mining and selling costs, mining recovery and dilution, pit slope angles) and processing factors (Li recovery, processing costs), to determine which portion of the block model has reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction as required by the JORC Code. To achieve this, the Mineral Resource has been subject to a pit optimisation study and cut-off grade analysis.
The 2023 Q3 Mineral Resource follows the completion of a 14 hole 2,355.2m sonic drilling programme which was completed in Q2 2023. Drilling covers double the area compared with the previous estimate giving new relatively wide spaced intersections in Basin East Extension and the southern part of Basin North.
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