The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - May 10, 2024
Li-FT Power Ltd. May 7 announced an update on the surface exploration program completed last year on the company's Cali lithium project, roughly six kilometers (3.7 miles) from the Howard's Pass access road and 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of the historical Cantung tungsten mine in Northwest Territories.
In 2022, Li-FT gained full ownership of the Cali project in western NWT, near the Yukon border. Covering a portion of the Little Nahanni Pegmatite Group, a 13- by 2.5-kilometer (eight by 1.6 miles) area where historical mapping has shown parallel dykes that outcrop over a 500-meter strike length over corridors up to 100-meters wide.
While the company's primary focus has been on the Yellowknife Lithium project east of NWT's capital city, in August 2023, Li-FT commenced a surface exploration program at Cali designed to better understand the average grade across the dyke's exposed strike length to 300 meters vertical with systematic rock sampling and mapping.
During the program, Li-FT completed a soil geochemistry survey covering the property, as well as a mapping and prospecting campaign. Rock sampling and mapping indicated that the spodumene pegmatite dyke swarm system is larger than had been anticipated, with numerous swarms present within an area of 1,500 meters by 1,000 meters – out of 163 grab samples collected, 124 returned grades at greater than one percent lithium oxide.
"We are very pleased with the surface program results from 2023," said Li-FT Power CEO Francis MacDonald. "When we initiated this program, we were expecting spodumene-bearing corridors to be limited to a single 150-meter-wide corridor, but the discovery of additional pegmatite corridors significantly upgrades the potential of the area."
With results like these, although Li-FT did not explicitly state that it would dedicate any further attention to Cali at this time, it can be expected the company may begin more extensive exploration efforts in the future.
"The new lithium anomaly defined by soil geochemistry adds even more upside with the potential for additional pegmatites located under cover," said MacDonald. "We see excellent potential at Cali to host a large spodumene resource."
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