White Cliff Minerals (ASX:WCN) has been granted a 20 square kilometre tenement immediately north of its Lake Percy joint venture tenement located in Western Australia where a lithium anomaly was recently discovered.
Joint venture partner Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR), who is earning up to a 70% interest, recently identified a two kilometre long lithium anomaly at the Lake Percy project.
White Cliff owns 100% of the newly acquired adjacent tenement where previous exploration identified numerous pegmatites in existing drilling and mapping.
White Cliff will undertake a comprehensive soil sampling program in February.
The tenements are located 430 kilometres east of Perth in the emerging Forrestania lithium province which includes the Mt Cattlin spodumene mine operated by Galaxy Resources (ASX:GXY) and the Mount Day lithium discovery.
Lake Percy joint venture
White Cliff farmed out Lake Percy in mid-2016 enabling the company to retain a free carried interest.
Liontown may earn up to 70% in the project by spending $1.75 million on exploration within four years of the agreement.
Geochemistry has now revealed a highly promising lithium oxide anomaly which contains values of up to 354 parts per million lithium oxide.
It has been outlined over a strike length of 2 kilometres and is coincident with pegmatites which locally exceed 100 metres true thickness.
Lake Percy is also located just 60 kilometres east of the world-class Earl Grey lithium discovery being developed by Kidman Resources (ASX:KDR).
In light of the strong anomaly identified at Lake Percy, Liontown has scheduled a maiden reverse circulation drilling program to start early February.
Analysis
While Lake Percy was originally farmed out as a non-core asset allowing White Cliff to focus on its flagship Aucu and Merolia gold projects, acquiring adjacent land to the recently identified lithium anomaly is a smart move.
Historical exploration on the newly acquired tenement identified pegmatites both in outcrop and on drill holes but no lithium assaying was undertaken.
Given the recent discovery of lithium containing pegmatites at Mt Day and the highly anomalous lithium soil geochemistry at the adjacent Lake Percy tenement, the soil sampling program in February will leverage White Cliff to news flow from a prospective target.