The brand new licences are largely contiguous with these held by Sibanye-Stillwater on the Keliber mission, which hosts a number of LCT spodumene-pegmatite deposits with printed sources of roughly 17 million tonnes grading 1% Li2O (lithium oxide).
Sibanye is at present developing an entire lithium provide chain complicated together with a centrally positioned spodumene concentrator mill close to Kaustinen, which it intends to truck ore to from a number of totally different deposits.
The South African mining group, which is investing as a lot as €600 million in partnership with the Finnish Minerals Group on constructing the mining complicated, is eyeing first manufacturing within the second half of 2025.
European Vitality Metals famous that its concessions are inside 1 km of a few of the recognized lithium-rich spodumene-pegmatite deposits at Keliber, and likewise inside 1 km of Sibanye’s proposed spodumene concentrator plant.
At current, the corporate is conducting a discipline program on its concessions to establish targets to drill later this yr. This system serves as a follow-up on the 2023 exploration program, throughout which its workforce recognized a number of occurrences of lithium-bearing pegmatite mineralization on the Nabba licence. The spotlight was the invention of the Kyrola prospect, an 850m lengthy by 110m vast spodumene-bearing pegmatite boulder discipline the place rock chip seize samples assayed as much as 3.84% Li2O.
“The growth of our exploration licences allowed for extra vital exploration to check and outline the subsurface extent of widespread mineralization recognized on floor,” CEO Jeremy Poirier stated in a information launch.
“In conjunction, our 2024 exploration program is designed to advance these initiatives and areas to a drill definition stage,” he stated. “The prospectivity of our tenements is highlighted by the proximity to different vital recognized deposits along with Keliber’s lithium concentrator at present below development.”