Zimbabwe-focused mining group, Prospect Resources has extended its lithium resource base in Zimbabwe by acquiring Barrington Resources' Good Days lithium project.
ASX-listed Prospect Resources already owns the Arcadia lithium project in the outskirts of Harare, which is considered to be the largest lithium project in Sub Saharan Africa.
Prospect recently exercised its option to acquire the Good Days lithium project, which is located in north eastern Zimbabwe.
The 8km2 Good Days lithium project contains numerous mineralised pegmatites, including historical workings for spodumene and tantalite (among other minerals) at the Good Days and Jordywyitt mines.
It is currently held by the Zimbabwean company Barrington Resources, who Prospect entered into an option agreement with in June 2017 to acquire a 70 percent direct interest in the project following a positive outcome from due diligence.
"The extension of this option agreement, until April 2018, allowed time for our team to regionally map and sample the remainder of the Good Days claims before a decision on whether to exercise the option agreement was made.
"With the positive changes occurring in Zimbabwe under the new Zimbabwe Government, Prospect elected to exercise the option early to give clarity to investors on the make-up of its expanding lithium portfolio and to fast track exploration," said Prospect.
The project area is located approximately 30 km east of the town of Mutoka in north eastern Zimbabwe and some 160 km from the capital city, Harare.
It consists of a mass of Lithium- Caesium-Tantalum pegmatites which were historically worked for spodumene, beryl, tantalite, columbite, cassiterite, feldspar and lepidolite.
Since the option agreement was first entered into in June, the Australia-based miner has drilled the known mineralised pegmatite zone to verify the historic geological model and undertaken two phases of soil sampling to identify other areas which may host economic lithium pegmatites.
According to the company, a total of 2, 556 soil samples were collected from almost 51 km of surveyed lines on the western extension to the previously identified Ford- Ntabeni lithium pegmatites swarm.
These form a parallel zone to the Good Days pegmatite. A total of 195 samples returned anomalous values; greater than the statistically determined threshold of 60 ppm. 33 of these samples assayed greater than 100 ppm, with a peak value of 8, 531 ppm. Three distinct 200 - 300 meter long anomalies have been defined on different pegmatites within the Ford-Ntabeni swarm.
In addition, the results of the 518 chip samples are equally encouraging. 24 of them have returned grades greater than 1 percent Li20, with three of them > 4 percent.
These higher grades are from pegmatites within the Ford-Ntabeni and Good Days swarms.
The identification of anomalous lithium values in soil samples suggests that hard rock mineralisation may be present beneath the soil cover and increases the prospectivity of the Good Days project away from the site's historic workings.
These latest results confirm the prospectivity of the greater area.
The discovery of further lithium mineralisation at the project would mean that the Good Days deposit would be a significant addition to Prospect Resource's strategic lithium resource base in Africa.
The company intends to commence with a follow up exploration programme focusing on defining a JORC reportable Mineral Resource and generating material for metallurgical testwork.
- BH24
Concern over Masvingo black market 
Kenya declares three days of mourning for Mugabe 
UK's Boris Johnson quits over Brexit stretegy 
SecZim licences VFEX 
Zimbabwe abandons debt relief initiative 
European Investment Bank warms up to Zimbabwe 
Young Investment Professional (YIP) Graduate Programme 2019 
Young Investment Professional (YIP) Graduate Programme 2019
Editor's Pick