Bradda Head kicks off 2023 drilling at Basin Project
By Josh White
Date: Thursday 16 Mar 2023
(Sharecast News) - Bradda Head Lithium announced the start of its 2023 drilling programme at the Basin Project in Arizona on Thursday, with the mobilisation of a sonic drilling rig.
The AIM-traded lithium development company said it was intending to add to its existing mineral resource of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) tonnes through the drilling programme.
It said the programme at Basin would consist of up to 25 holes, to be drilled in the coming months at the Basin East Extension (BEE), Basin East (BE) and Basin North (BN).
BEE is adjacent to BE, while BN joins with BEE's northern border.
The aim would be to increase coverage over as much of the project's 17 square kilometre area as possible.
To date, just 1.4 square kilometres of the area has been drilled, leading to a mineral resource of 371,000 tonnes of LCE.
The board said the resource remained open to the west, northwest and north of the drilled area, where BHL had the adjacent BEE claim block and beyond into BN, Basin West (BW) and Basin West Extension (BWE) claim blocks, where geological mapping and geophysical surveys predicted similar clay strata could be present.
Results from the firm's previous drilling programme indicated that the shallower high-grade and upper clay zones thickened to the northwest extent of the drilled area towards Bradda's BEE permits.
The planned drilling at BEE was expected to further investigate the extent of that higher-grade zone, which could potentially lead to expanding the current resource, setting the scene for drilling at BW and BWE.
BW and BWE cover an 11 square kilometre area, significantly larger than BE, BEE and BN combined.
BHL is using sonic drilling, which it said is more environmentally sensitive as it uses very little water compared to diamond core or reverse circulation drilling.
It was also progressing the metallurgical testing of its lithium-bearing clays at Basin, trialling existing and new technologies which could qualify for funding grants under the Biden administration's recent clean energy initiatives.
The board said it was continuing to monitor progress made by other clay projects and learn from them.
"2023 is going to be a significant year of resource growth for Bradda Head," said chief executive officer Charles FitzRoy.
"With further drilling already planned at Basin West and Basin West Extension, BHL is excellently placed to take full advantage of the near-term resource growth potential at our sedimentary lithium assets in Arizona.
"The area we are permitting at Basin West is over 11 square kilometres, which is considerably larger than Basin East, Basin East Extension, and Basin North combined."
At the close on Thursday, shares in Bradda Head Lithium were up 3.64% at 5.7p.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.
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