South Star Battery Metals Corp announced that it has contracted a drilling company for the maiden diamond drilling campaign at its Alabama Graphite (CSE:ALP) project.
The program, set to begin this month, will include drilling 10 to 15 holes, logging and assays, a quality assurance program, background water quality testing, geotechnical drilling, groundwater monitoring and more, the company said.
"We are excited to get the maiden drilling campaign started in Alabama and test the extents of the mineralization,” CEO Richard Pearce said in a statement. “This initial drilling campaign will be focused on testing limits and generating significant targets for the 2023 drilling campaign, which will ultimately result in a preliminary economic assessment (PEA)."
READ: South Star Battery Metals files Planned Economic Analysis, final mining license request for Santa Cruz Graphite project in Brazil
The company anticipates the PEA will be completed by 4Q 2023, according to Pearce.
Meanwhile, South Star is also preparing to mobilize a geophysics contractor to perform approximately 4-5 linear kilometers of geophysics to test the limits of the priority drilling targets at the Santa Cruz mine in Bahia, Brazil prior to beginning the 2023 drilling program.
“At Santa Cruz, the geophysics program should help us improve our drilling hit rate and test limits of the 10-15 near-term targets we have previously identified in preparation for the 2023 drilling campaign, which is scheduled to begin after the rainy season in 2023,” Pearce said.
“The Santa Cruz 2023 campaign will be a mix of diamond and reverse circulation (RC) drilling, and the proposed meters would significantly increase the total meters into the project. Our goals are to generate a significantly larger resource and reserve estimate to support our future Phase 2/3 expansion plans. We are eager to get the drills turning as we scale our upcoming production."
South Star is a Canadian battery metals project developer focused on the selective acquisition and development of near-term production projects in the Americas.
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