European Metals Holdings Ltd (ASX:EMH, LON:EMH) has defined an initial Indicated Resource of 500,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent at the Cinovec lithium/tin project in the Czech Republic, enabling it to move toward a Preliminary Feasibility Study.
A previous Scoping Study indicated the deposit could be amenable to bulk underground mining.
The drilling program confirmed the robustness and consistency of the Cinovec ore body and heralded both grade and widths of the mineralized intercepts.
This has led to an increase in the Total lithium project resource to 5.7 million tonne LCE, contained in 532 million tonnes at 0.43% Li2O.
Within this resource, resides one of the largest undeveloped tin deposits in the world.
Total indicated and inferred mineral resources of tin are estimated at 75.4 million tonnes grading 0.23% tin for 176,000 tonnes of contained tin.
The tin would impact favourably on the development of the Cinovec project as all lithium intercepts contain zones significantly enriched in tin and tungsten, as the by-products would lower the unit production cost of lithium carbonate.
The upgrade is based on a modest drill program completed by EMH in the southern part of the project and over 83,000 metres of historic drilling completed by the Czechoslovakian Government from the 1960s through to the 1980s.
A far larger drill program will commence next month to test higher grade, shallower lithium mineralisation.
Metallurgical test work to date has produced both battery grade lithium carbonate and high-grade tin concentrate at high recoveries with the scoping study revealing a potential production cost of $1,500 per tonne of lithium carbonate.
Cinovec is centrally located for European end-users and is well serviced by infrastructure, with a sealed road adjacent to the deposit, rail lines within 10 kilometres and an active 22 kV transmission line running to the historic mine.
The company held cash of $1.7 million at March 2016 quarter end.
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