Galileo Mining Ltd (ASX: GAL) has completed the MinRes Farm-in and Joint Venture Agreement, opening the door for lithium exploration to being in it Norseman project area in WA.
“With completion of the MinRes lithium joint venture agreement, lithium exploration will now begin at the Norseman project," Managing Director Brad Underwood said.
"MinRes have an incredible depth of experience in the lithium business and have secured the rights to work on our untested lithium potential at Norseman. In return Galileo shareholders will benefit from a focussed program of lithium exploration while the Company continues to concentrate on the extensive potential for nickel, PGEs, and gold in the same region.
"Our recent drill results show more prospective palladium and platinum zones within close proximity to geophysical anomalies. Our exploration strategy follows a cyclical pattern with campaign drilling, review and interpretation of results, integration of new information, and then more drilling. We believe this cycle of exploration activity gives us the best opportunity of making further discoveries in a fundamentally unexplored tenement package.
"Follow up drilling is now being planned with the next round of drilling scheduled for August.”
A Tranche 1 payment of $5 million under the Agreement (of the $7.5 million total consideration) has been received. This cash payment significantly bolsters the funds available to Galileo to undertake aggressive exploration programs at both its Norseman and Fraser Range projects. The Tranche 2 payment of $2.5 million under the Agreement is due on or before 30th May 2025.
MinRes and Galileo have now formed a 30% / 70% unincorporated joint venture for the exploration and, if deemed warranted mining of, lithium on the Norseman tenements. MinRes has the ability to increase its stake to 55% by sole funding an additional $15 million of exploration expenditure on the Tenements over the 4 years following completion.
MinRes has the further ability to elect to increase its stake to 70% by sole funding expenditure through to a Decision to Mine. Upon MinRes earning a 70% interest, Galileo must elect to either remain in Joint Venture and contribute to Development Costs or convert its interest into a royalty.
Norseman Exploration Drilling
Approximately 2,700m of RC drilling was undertaken in April/May with the aim of identifying mineralisation related to geophysical anomalies. Sulphide minerals were intersected in a variety of geological settings including as disseminated sulphide within ultramafic and mafic units, and within sediments.
Multiple drill intersections in ultramafic and mafic rocks (the potential host units for economic mineralisation) contained anomalous palladium and platinum results.
The most prospective result from the recent round of drilling was received from NRC498, drilled adjacent to a moderately strong geophysical response. This chargeable response will be the subject of follow up drill testing scheduled for August. Detailed dipole-dipole IP modelling of this section line displayed a marked difference to the original pole-dipole modelled results. Regional pole- dipole modelling will now be used only for reconnaissance drilling of chargeable IP features with detailed dipole-dipole data to be used for more focused follow up drill testing.
A strong chargeable response targeted by NRC495 was directly linked to disseminated sulphides in ultramafic rock units overlying sediments, the same geological configuration as that seen at the Callisto deposit. However, this strong chargeable response with accompanying sulphides did not contain anomalous levels of economic mineralisation.
Overall drill results from the programme demonstrate the value of targeting geophysical induced polarisation (IP) anomalies in the search for new disseminated sulphide deposits.
Further prospective results were received from NRC496 drilled on section line 6,449,700. A large zone of anomalous mineralisation has been identified in ultramafic rock which broadly matches the top of a change in chargeable response and a change in geology to the west. This section will attract follow up drilling to determine whether the subtle geophysical response and the ultramafic/mafic contact zone can be linked to mineralisation.
Regional pole-dipole surveying of the 20km Callisto trend and the 12km Mission Sill trend is now complete with ongoing interpretation to select which geophysical responses will be selected for drill testing.
The current strategy is to build on the understanding of the geophysical data gained from recent drilling and to continue working from areas of higher data density (areas with drilling) to those with no drilling. Following this strategy, the next round of drilling will continue to focus on the northern Callisto zone as it continues along strike up to 10km north of the Callisto deposit.
