Jindalee Resources Ltd (ASX:JRL) has increased its footprint at the McDermitt Lithium Project straddling the Oregon-Nevada border in the US by 67% to a total of 54.6 square kilometres.
Confirmation was received by the US Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of the lodgement of 271 new claims contiguous with the 404 existing claims at McDermitt, which cover the interpreted strike continuation of lithium mineralised sediments identified from mapping and recent drilling.
The new claims have strong potential to enhance the project from which an updated mineral resource estimate is expected in early April.
Exploration target areas, drilling and new claims
Confidence of future drilling
Jindalee recently completed a 15-hole drilling program at the project, with broad mineralised intersections returned from most holes including nine holes outside the current inferred mineral resource.
Encouragingly, intersections in MDRC015, 1.6 kilometres from the nearest drill hole included in the resource estimate, confirmed that lithium mineralisation extends west and scattered outcrops of the sediments which host the lithium mineralisation at McDermitt have been observed on the new claims.
This gives confidence that future drilling of this area will result in a further increase to the scale of the McDermitt project.
Increasing potential development options
In addition, 88 of the new claims are in Nevada, increasing potential development options at McDermitt.
The 2020 Fraser Institute survey ranked Nevada as the top jurisdiction in the world for investment based on the Investment Attractiveness Index.
Updated estimate
Independent experts H&S Consultants Pty Ltd are updating the mineral resource estimate for the McDermitt project.
The increased drill density across the deposit is expected to be sufficient to extend the resource and exploration target range as well as convert a proportion of the existing inferred mineral resources to indicated status, to feed into a possible scoping study for McDermitt in the June quarter.
This updated mineral resource estimate is expected to be available early April.
In late 2019 Jindalee announced an inferred mineral resource of 150 million tonnes at 2,000ppm lithium (0.43% Li2O) at a 1,750ppm lithium cut-off.