Azure Minerals Limited (ASX:AZS) has announced an exploration target for the company’s Andover Lithium Project, just days after drilling at the Western Australian project site intersected the thickest zones of lithium mineralisation to date — achieving some of the best lithium drill intersections globally.
The estimated range of potential mineralisation in the maiden Exploration Target, which encompasses Target Areas 1, 2 and 3, is 100 to 240 million tonnes grading at 1.0 to 1.5 per cent lithium oxide.
Exploration Target for Target Areas 1, 2 and 3 at the Andover Lithium Project | Image courtesy Azure Minerals Limited
This Exploration Target is based on the interpretation of the geology and mineralisation data that has been collated from this project to date.
It also incorporates the wireframed size of the APO11 pegmatite-hosted mineralisation as defined by the drilling, as well as the potential size of pegmatites that have been mapped and sampled at the surface, with limited or no drilling to date.
The defined Target Areas covered by the target form a subset of the Andover pegmatite swarm that extends over an area of nine kilometres east-west and up to five kilometres north-south.
Azure Minerals disclosed that the Exploration Target does not include mineralisation beyond the target areas, which has the potential to further increase the overall lithium endowment of the Andover Lithium Project.
Andover Lithium Project showing pegmatite outcrops and target areas | Image courtesy Azure Minerals Limited
The first drill hole (ANRD0017) in Target Area 2 resulted in a 209 metre lithium strike with 1.42 per cent lithium oxide while the second hole (ANRD0018) intersected 183.1 metres at 1.25 per cent.
This showed very broad zones of lithium mineralisation intersected in the AP0011 pegmatite.
Azure Minerals’ Managing Director Tony Rovira stated that these broad high-grade intercepts entrenched Andover as one of the best lithium exploration projects in the world.
“Encouragingly, the results suggest the mineralisation remains open along strike and to depth, providing Azure with the potential to produce similar, if not better, lithium intersections of such scale and tenor in future drilling.
“The Andover project is an exceptional discovery given the abundance of outcropping mineralised pegmatites and substantial widths of high-grade mineralisation intersected in the drilling. With multiple drill rigs onsite testing the numerous pegmatite zones, we are only beginning to realise the full scale of the project’s potential,” said Rovira.
The 70 square kilometres Andover Project is located in the West Pilbara region of Western Australia and covers most of the Andover Mafic-Ultramafic Intrusive Complex.
