Piedmont Lithium Ltd (ASX:PLL) is continuing to enhance its first-mover advantage by securing an additional 107 acres within the historical Carolina Tin-Spodumene Belt (TSB) in North Carolina, U.S.
This increases Piedmont’s total land holdings to 1,199 acres and, more importantly, consolidates a further 137-acre land position just south of the company’s core land package where five rigs are currently drilling.
Grab samples have been collected from the new area with nine of the samples returning high-grade lithium, with results including 2.89%, 2.58% and 2.20% lithium oxide.
READ: Piedmont’s lithium strategy attracts broker coverage
Keith D. Phillips, president and chief executive officer, said: “The addition of a third large contiguous land block is highly strategic, particularly given the new property’s location on-trend and midway between our current core land package and the historic Hallman-Beam mine, one of the world’s largest sources of lithium from the 1950s to the 1990s.
“Our geologists are excited about the prospects on the new land, and we are optimistic that our strategy of TSB land consolidation will position us to develop a large, long-lived integrated lithium project.”
READ: Piedmont Lithium conducts further drilling aimed at establishing a maiden resource
Piedmont continues to make significant progress on its 20,000-metre drilling campaign, with the first 13,000 metres committed to infill drilling to define the maiden resource.
On completion of the infill drilling, the company expects to move one or more of the five rigs to the newly acquired properties to test the high-priority drill targets.
Piedmont will report on the progress of the current drilling campaign and future drill targets over the course of this quarter.
READ: Piedmont Lithium initiates scoping study on its lithium project in the U.S.
The company recently appointed Primero Group and CSA Global to manage a scoping study on the Piedmont Lithium Project.
The scoping study is expected to be published shortly after preparing the maiden resource.
Meanwhile, Piedmont is continuing to add to its land position in the TSB during the course of 2018 with management in discussions with multiple landowners in the region to secure additional land.