Azure Minerals Limited (ASX: AZS) has commenced a lithium- focused RC drilling campaign at the Andover Project (Azure 60% / Creasy Group 40%), located in the West Pilbara region of Western Australia.
Following receipt of the environmental and heritage clearances which allows us to access several high priority lithium targets, we have moved rapidly to increase our drilling capability at the Andover Project,” Managing Director, Tony Rovira, said.
“Along with the two diamond core rigs that have been operating on site since early March, we’ve now added two RC rigs to our lithium-focused drilling campaign and it’s likely that additional drill rigs will be mobilised within the next month to further accelerate the programme towards resource definition.
“To date, we’re very encouraged by the visual indications in the drill core from the AP0011 and AP0012 pegmatites, so for the time being the rigs will continue at these locations. However, I expect to start drilling other high-priority pegmatite targets at Andover in the near future when additional drill rigs arrive on site.”
RC Drilling
Two RC rigs were mobilised to site this week and have commenced drilling along the 1,500m strike length of the AP0011 and AP0012 pegmatites. To further accelerate the lithium exploration, an additional one or two RC rigs, depending upon availability, will be mobilised to Andover within the next month, enabling the Company to speed up the step-out drilling and test the full extent of the AP0011, AP0012 and other pegmatites.
Diamond Drilling
The two diamond core rigs currently on site have moved to the recently approved areas to test along the 1,500m strike length of the AP0011 and AP0012 pegmatites. Previous diamond drilling intersected substantial widths of pegmatites in most holes confirming along-strike and down-dip extensions of the outcropping pegmatites that returned high lithium grades from the ompany’s previously reported extensive surface sampling campaign.
Next steps
Numerous high priority lithium targets are now available to be drilled across the pegmatite swarm that extends over an area of nine km (east-west) and up to five km (north-south) within the central and eastern parts of the Andover project area. Going forward, the Company expects to have a total of five to six drill rigs operating on site to ensure rapid testing and delineation of potential lithium resources.
The first priority is to focus drilling in the AP0009-AP0014 sub-region which contains multiple pegmatites extending over a strike length in excess of 1,500m.
Azure’s geologists have already visually identified abundant spodumene in the AP0011 and AP0012 pegmatites, both in outcrop where surface sampling returned numerous high grade lithium assays between 2% to 4% Li2O and also in the drill core produced in the ongoing diamond drilling programme.