Plymouth Minerals have backed up their claims of a world-class Lithium deposit at San Jose in Spain with a major upgrade in JORC resources following a recent second phase of drilling.
The aspiring Lithium developer announced this week a 21% overall increase in tonnes without any drop in grade and a 140% increase in tonnes in the indicated resource category.
The combined indicated and inferred resource for the San Jose Lithium mica deposit now stands at 112 million tonnes grading 0.61% Lithium dioxide.
The upgrade followed a recently completed program of just 970 metres of diamond drilling and the deposit still remains open along strike and at depth.
The resource contains an equivalent of more than 1.6 million tonnes of Lithium carbonate equivalent, ranking it as one of the largest deposits in Europe.
The resource grade is lower than local investors have become accustomed to with hard-rock spodumene deposits in Australia, however the grade is at the high end for Lithium mica deposits which, according to Plymouth management can be equally as lucrative.
Plymouth’s scoping study has already outlined the potential for very impressive returns using a proven process technology to convert the Lithium mica resource on-site all the way through to battery-grade Lithium Carbonate.
The economics are strongly supported by the flat, outcropping nature of the deposit, its proximity to sealed roads and most importantly, the presence of a gas pipeline not even 1km away.
Plymouth is an equal joint venture partner at San Jose with Valoriza Minerals, the mining arm of giant Spanish construction and engineering company, Sacyr. ASX-listed Plymouth can increase its stake to 75% by spending a minimum of $3.9m and completing a feasibility study within two years.
The company is planning to hit that milestone much earlier given that the latest sizeable resource upgrade will allow it to skip the scoping study stage and progress straight to a definitive feasibility study.
Plymouth Executive Chairman, Adrian Byass, said: “San Jose is a world class asset with Lithium mineralisation that is amenable to a simple, open pit mining operation in a part of Europe with excellent infrastructure. This resource is now of sufficient JORC confidence level to support the intended feasibility study.”
Investors have already been taking notice, marking up Plymouth by 24% in the past fortnight to 21 cents.
Leading broker Hartleys have set a price target for Plymouth of 68c a share based on a very conservative Lithium Carbonate price estimate of just USD$10,000 a tonne.
Lithium Carbonate is selling for around double that figure at the moment.
