Atlantic Lithium Ltd announced an additional three drill rigs, the expansion of the drilling programme, and new drilling observations at the Ewoyaa lithium project in Ghana.
AIM-traded Atlantic, which is on track to bring West Africa's first lithium mine into production, yesterday confirmed it had been approached by Ghana’s Minerals Income Investment Fund about a potential investment.
READ: Atlantic Lithium confirms interest from Ghana’s Minerals Income Investment Fund
"We are pleased to be increasing the number of drill rigs active on the ground, with four rigs planned to be drilling within the next two weeks,” said interim chief executive Len Kolff.
Three reverse circulation rigs are already on site while a diamond core drill (DD) rig is due to arrive next week. The DD rig will test the proposed mine pit wall ground conditions ahead of detailed engineering design.
The original drilling programme has been increased from about 19,000 metres (m) to about 37,000m of exploration, resource extension, infill to convert inferred resource estimates to measured resources for the first 1.5 years of mine life, and geotechnical drilling.
"We have drilled over 9,000m to date with multiple new spodumene pegmatite intervals observed over the Grasscutter North prospect, with assays pending,” said Kolff.
"We are currently experiencing significant delays in assay turnaround time due to the lithium boom and stretched labs, with over one-month delays, however our timeline for the delivery of the PFS [pre-feasibility study] study during Q3 2022 is unchanged.
"The exploration potential is clear, and we see significant opportunity for resource growth. Not only do we believe that project metrics will improve significantly beyond the current defined mine life, but we also see the potential for further economic improvement due to the recent increases in spodumene concentrate pricing which have far exceeded our initial SC6 price modelling parameters."