Explorer Essential Metals will embark on a 30-hole, 2330m aircore drilling program this week at its Dome North lithium project in Western Australia's Eastern Goldfields.
Dome North, about 130km south of Kalgoorlie and within 80km of Ganfeng Lithium and Mineral Resources' Mt Marion lithium mine, has a resource of 11.2 million tonnes at 1.21% lithium oxide.
The latest round of drilling will follow up on open or unexplained anomalism generated from the 93-hole August 2021 program at Dome North.
The program will follow up a 350m-wide zone of lithium anomalism in lower saprolite between the Davy and Cade deposits, as well as testing anomalism along strike to the north-east of the Heller deposit that is geochemically similar to that at the northern ends of Davy and Cade.
Essential has also appointed a new drilling contractor to complete a 13-hole diamond program that was initially started in the December quarter.
The diamond program, which should be completed by mid-February, is targeting near-surface (oxide/transition) mineralisation at both the Cade and Davy deposits.
The company is aiming to receive the diamond results by mid-April, after which it will select core samples for metallurgical test work ahead of planned a scoping study.
"The more we learn about Dome North, the more excited we are about its future," Essential managing director Tim Spencer said.
"While we advance the Dome North Resource in terms of testing its extent and improving its confidence level by infill drilling and further metallurgical test work, we are continuing with high-quality exploration in and around the resource as well as across our entire 450sq.km of project tenure."
Essential has completed an environmental baseline survey over the Dome North area, and while the final report is pending, no particularly sensitive flora or fauna were identified during the survey.
The company appointed lithium plant specialist, NRW Holdings subsidiary Primero Group, to develop order of magnitude capital and operating cost estimates for two plant flowsheet options.
The work contemplated a 1.6Mt per annum concentrator, utilising either whole of ore flotation or dense media separation and flotation.
The estimates that have now been provided will assist Essential in understanding the viability of a standalone lithium concentrate operation.
Essential is aiming to formally kick off the scoping study by mid-year, pending the results of drilling and metallurgical test work.
While Essential's primary focus is lithium, it also owns the Golden Ridge and Juglah Dome gold projects in WA and and has free-carried joint venture minority interests (20-30%) over an additional four gold projects and two nickel projects.
Essential shares have started 2022 off strongly and have more than doubled just two weeks into the year as lithium companies enjoy record pricing and positive sentiment.
