DRILLING FOR LITHIUM BEGINS:
TORONTO Stock Exchange — listed mining group, Chimata Gold Corporation, says it has started drilling at the Kamativi Lithium Tailings in Matabeleland North province.
The drilling is meant to determine the volume of lithium deposits.
Chimata CEO Richard Groome, said the company expects a positive outcome from the drillings.
“Results stemming from the successful drill programme will add significant and much more comprehensive information to the project’s existing database.
“The project comprises a tailings deposit that accumulated over the approximately 40-year life of the Kamativi Tin Mine prior to its closure in 1994,” he said.
The company said the initial auger drilling is fully funded and the programme is based on a nominal 100m x 100m drill hole spacing comprising a total of 1 500m of drilling over 75 drill holes covering the project footprint.
Drilling is being undertaken by local contractor Optimum Drilling Pvt Ltd. The company has engaged MSA to provide independent resource evaluation and oversight on the programme.
The Toronto Stock Exchange-listed mining company also said it has engaged — through its local partners — local environmental consultants Green Resources Pvt Ltd to carry out a baseline environmental assessment of the project area concurrent with the auger and assaying programme.
Chimata Gold Corporation is looking forward to acquiring Zimbabwe Lithium Company, which was recently granted exclusive development rights for the Kamativi lithium tailings deposit at the Kamativi Tin mine.
Earlier this year, the mining firm signed a “binding letter of intent” (LOI) with Mauritian-headquartered Zimbabwe Lithium Company Limited.
An earlier provisional report revealed an exploration target with a volume range of 14 800 000 to 15 080 000 cubic metres and a tonnage range of between 23 000 000 to 25 000 000 tonnes of tailings material, the Kamativi Tailings Dump (“KTD”) at a grade range of 0,29 percent to 1,13 percent Li2O with 70 percent being Spodumene.
Interest in the Kamativi Lithium Tailings has increased over the years as demand in lithium has risen of late.
The Government is on record saying the Kamativi lithium investment was expected to employ 500 people directly.
Zimbabwe is expected to become the fifth-largest lithium producer in the world after Australia, Argentina, Chile and China.
Over the past two years, from January 20162018, South American lithium prices have roughly doubled from $7 000 a tonne to over $14 000 a tonne, according to Benchmark Minerals Intelligence.
This is due primarily to the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids. In 2014, global electric vehicle sales were less than 400 000 units; in 2017 that number increased threefold to over 1,2 million EVs sold.
China is one of the largest consumers of lithium as it relates to electric vehicles and accounted for more than half of global EV sales last year.
Government has placed the Kamativi Lithium Project on the “100-days Rapid Results Initiative”.