Xantippe Resources Ltd (ASX:XTC, OTC:XTCPF) has reflected on everything from exploration to board and management changes in its September quarter report.
The explorer is on the hunt for gold and lithium across its portfolios in Argentina and Western Australia and made progress on several fronts in the last three months.
Xantippe enters 2022’s final quarter with a new chair and directors at the helm, eager to bring the company’s portfolio into the next chapter of exploration and development.
Carachi: a sustainable lithium hub
XTC’s Carachi Project comprises the La Sofia, Luz Maria, La Fortuna, La Fortuna 1, Rita and Rita I and La Portola properties, which cover over 21,900 hectares in Argentina’s Carachi Basin.
Big-picture, it’s hoped Carachi can offer proven lithium-bearing brines to support a feasible lithium project.
As such, the company is taking a fast-track approach and plans to kick off drilling at the project as soon as the Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) results and permits are in hand.
In the near term, once an environmental impact report (EIR) is checked off the list, Xantippe will submit drill permit requests for select well locations.
It’s important to note that the EIR was previously approved and the company is seeking approval for its re-application.
What happened this quarter?
In the last three months, Xantippe has:
- Appointed international hydrogeological services consultants Montgomery and Associates Inc.
- Conducted a VES survey
- Tapped Dr. José Luis Martín to lead Company’s technical team in Catamarca
- Rehabilitated historical wells on the Luz Maria Tenement
- Advanced the environmental approvals process.
Southern Cross: a golden opportunity
Beyond its South American lithium property, Xantippe is also prospecting for gold at the Southern Cross project in WA.
XTC’s tenements cover around 60 kilometres of linear strike along the prospective Southern Cross Greenstone Belt, which has historically produced around 15 million gold ounces.
Limited ground exploration activity has been conducted at Southern Cross since 2005, but Xantippe knows that gold mineralisation in the belt can be categorised into two distinct styles: shear hosted and vein deposits.
The Southern Cross portfolio now comprises 16 prospecting licences and seven exploration licences, spanning a combined 197 square kilometres.
What happened this quarter?
Over the September quarter, Xantippe rolled out a soil sampling and mapping campaign, targeting Glen Innis and four other Southern Cross tenements.
The explorer shipped off 327 soil samples from Glen Innis for ultrafine+ analysis, returning anomalous gold of up to 886.5 parts per billion and highlighting several areas for follow up and extensional work.
A lithium trend was also observed that doesn’t appear to relate to the anomalous gold.
Ultimately, both the gold and lithium occurrences warrant additional fieldwork, which could frame up future targets for shallow drill testing.
Meanwhile, results for Xantippe’s recent geophysical survey came back, assessing four southern tenements within the Southern Cross portfolio.
Altogether, the explorer generated 23 new targets, including 13 high-priority prospects — mapping out its exploration framework in the season to come.
Changing of the guard
As operations ramp up in Argentina, Xantippe is focused on getting the right team in the boardroom.
As part of this strategic direction, Juan Santos became a director over the September quarter, while Guzman Fernandez resigned from the board.
Post-quarter end, more executive changes were made:
- John Featherby became a director and the executive chairman
- Imants Kins stepped down as chair, but remains on the board as a non-executive director
- Richard Henning resigned as managing director
- Carlos Arecco became a company director.
The company also executed agreements with two of its Argentinian-domiciled directors to provide managerial and consulting support to its South American operations.
Ultimately, Xantippe hopes that changing the guard will better position it to develop its cornerstone Carachi project.
In other corporate news, XTC issued nearly 35 million tranche two placement shares during the September quarter, capping off a raise approved in early June.