MINING company Cobre Montana has lodged an exploration licence for an area extending 50km from Donnybrook to Bridgetown.
The application covers ground pegmatite swarms at Brookhampton, Kirup, Mullalyup, Koala Road, and areas around Greenbushes, with a high potential for discovering another Greenbushes or lithium mica occurence.
The current Talison lithium mine in Greenbushes produces about a third of the world’s lithium requirements.
Cobre Montana together with Perth-based Strategic Metallurgy has developed extraction technology capable of recovering the lithium from other lithium minerals that occur in pegmatites and some granites. Cobre Montana has exclusive Western Australian licensing rights to utilise the extraction technology to recover lithium from the micas.
The Company will implement an exploration program to determine the extent of lithium mineralisation along the Bridgetown-Donnybrook Shear, providing a strong focus on pegmatites already identified, in particular those extending beyond the Talison mining operations.
Cobre Montana’s application covers pegmatites extending south of the historic Greenbushes mine where production for tin and tantalum commenced in 1881. Extensive drilling from 1977 to 1980 identified the lithium resource, the largest lithium pegmatite resource yet discovered. The resource supports the world’s largest lithium mining operations which produced approximately 30% of global lithium output in 2013.
The area applied for covers 93 sub-blocks (27526 Ha). The application partly surrounds the current mining operations of the world’s largest lithium producer and the world class pegmatite hosted Greenbushes lithium/tin/tantalum deposit.
Cobre Montana plans to undertake reconnaissance exploration within the Greenbushes project area to determine the potential for additional tin, tantalum and lithium mineralisation within the pegmatite swarms and the distribution of lithium minerals within mineralized pegmatites.
"We are fortunate to gain a foothold in what is historically the world’s most productive lithium district," Cobre Montana Managing Director Adrian Griffin said.
"The region has surprisingly attracted little exploration, leaving very good potential to make further discoveries. This environment combined with Cobre’s ability to capitalise on lithium micas, the “lost lithium ore”, provides a significant opportunity. Lithium micas remain Cobre Montana’s main game, but with this ELA, we cannot rule out the reasonable opportunity it presents for a new lithium pegmatite discovery in the Greenbushes style."
Mr Griffin said the exploration would use standard field techniques of mapping and sampling, augmented by geophysical surveys and high-tech field base laser chemical analysis.
He said there would be no mine at this stage as it was an exploration project that would have a very low environmental impact.
"All stakeholders will be engaged in the planning process. No activities will be undertaken on private land without owner consent and there will be significant interaction with landowners during the planning stages," he said.
"Our primary target is lithium bearing mica, a material not considered ore in the past, but that may well be abundant in the area. We have, together with partners strategic Metallurgy, developed cost effective techniques for recovery of lithium chemicals from these minerals.
"We have been very successful in recovering lithium from such feed stocks from our projects in the Eastern Goldfields, and also from the giant Conovec lithium deposit in the Czech Republic," Mr Griffin said.
Donnybrook-Balingup Shire President Steve Dilley said the project could be great for the local economy, which had always lacked diversity.
"I can only see positives as long as the drilling contractors in the first instance respect landholders rights, and if there is enough resource to sustain mining operations, they do the same," he said.
"If additional mining operations did commence in the area then obviously extra heavy truck movements would be a concern to both the Shire and community. Any new bulk freight task however might just make the Greenbushes-Picton rail line economically viable to renew and use again, which would be a positive," he said.