Piedmont Lithium Ltd (ASX:PLL) has revealed a major JORC resource update for its flagship Piedmont Lithium Project located within the world-class Carolina Tin-Spodumene Belt in North Carolina, US.
The global resource for the Piedmont project has increased 47% to 27.9 million tonnes grading 1.11% lithium oxide for 309,000 tonnes of lithium oxide and 764,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent.
The majority of the project’s resource is located at the Core property, which was the subject of the resource update.
Notably, 74% of the Core property’s resource is within 100 metres of surface and 97% is within 150 metres of surface.
Scoping study update expected in July 2019
Piedmont’s president and CEO Keith D. Phillips said: “We are very pleased with the resource update at our Core property, bringing our total project-wide resources to 27.9 million tonnes at 1.11% lithium oxide.
“As we expand our land holdings and drill out other highly prospective targets, we are optimistic that we will ultimately identify North America’s largest spodumene ore body.
“This scale, combined with high grade, strong mineralogy and metallurgy, and our superior location in North Carolina, all support the unique strategic nature of the Piedmont Lithium Project.”
Piedmont expects to complete a pre-feasibility level metallurgical test work program followed by a scoping study update in July 2019.
READ: Piedmont Lithium mineral analysis reveals simple lithium ore body
Piedmont recently completed mineralogical testing in the form of x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis on samples from Piedmont.
The results from the Core, Central and Sunnyside areas show the relatively pure spodumene character of the ore bodies, which is unusual but very positive.
The pure spodumene will allow for a simplified flowsheet to produce strong lithium recoveries.
Often hard rock lithium projects contain multiple lithium-bearing minerals such as petalite and lepidolite.
Proactive caught up with the company in late May 2019 to discuss its recent drilling success and what that means for the project.