American Pacific Borate & Lithium Ltd (ASX:ABR) has commenced a 23 hole, 10,000 meters drilling program at its Fort Cady Borate and Lithium Project in Southern California, U.S.
In total, circa US$50 million has been spent on this project for licence acquisition, drilling, resource estimation, metallurgical testing, feasibility studies and pilot plant infrastructure.
Fort Cady is a rare and large colemanite deposit with a substantial lithium potential.
Interestingly, it is the largest known contained borate occurrence in the world not owned by the two major borate producers Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) and Eti Maden.
14 drill holes have been designed to confirm the historical borate resource that includes the following intersections:
- 9.7 metres at 24.9% boric acid equivalent from 457 metres; and
- 9.8 metres at 23.4% boric acid equivalent from 406 metres.
Two drill holes have been designed to test the northeast extension of the evaporite along strike from the historical borate resource.
The company’s lithium brine exploration program has six drill holes for 2,600 meters to be completed using reverse circulation percussion drilling.
American Pacific is testing the hypothesis that greater concentrations of lithium will be located towards the basin centre.
The drill program is expected to take circa 15 weeks to complete with the initial assay results expected in October 2017.