Everest Metals’ Rover project is set to be hit with the drillbit this week when Rio Tinto Exploration kicks off a seven-hole reverse-circulation (RC) drilling program at the operation’s northernmost tenement in Western Australia’s goldfields.
Everest’s 100-per-cent owned Rover project is in the State’s Central Yilgarn region, an area prospective for both Archean gold and volcanic-hosted massive sulphide deposits. While relatively underexplored historically, the area is now undergoing a resurgence in exploration.
Rio Tinto Exploration, a wholly-owned subsidiary of mining giant Rio Tinto, has designed the campaign to target potential pegmatite-hosted lithium mineralisation beneath weathered pegmatite outcrop. A total of 1400m of drilling across the seven RC drill holes is planned, with each hole expected to reach a depth of up to 200m.
Management says the program is expected to take about 10 days to complete and will involve drilling on both vertical and inclined orientations to effectively target the sub-cropping pegmatite.
The Rio subsidiary is in an 80-20 joint venture agreement with Everest in relation to the project’s non-gold mineral rights – namely its prospective lithium and tantalum mineralisation at one of Rover’s three tenements.
Rio Tinto Exploration entered an earn-in option agreement with Everest (then named Twenty Seven Co.) back in March last year, under which it could earn the 80 per cent interest in the non-gold minerals at the tenement by spending $5 million on non-gold exploration activities at the site.
The deal was secured with a $25,000 up-front payment to Everest for an exclusive six-month option to explore. The Rio subsidiary then exercised its option last October – once the initial exploration program was complete – to start earning its 80 per cent interest by sole-funding the $5 million of non-gold exploration.
Everest recognised the lithium potential of the Rover gold project back in December, 2021, when it completed a 31-hole RC drill program that intersected a 4m envelope of massive sulphides. A review of historical data and field mapping by Rio Tinto Exploration later identified weathered pegmatites considered highly-prospective for lithium and tantalum mineralisation.
Geochemical sampling during the initial six-month option period identified a sub-cropping weathered pegmatite unit that may be prospective for spodumene and tantalum mineralisation, leading to Rio Tinto Exploration to prioritise an area for follow-up drill-testing.
Everest Metals chief operating officer Simon Phillips said: “EMC is pleased Rio Tinto Exploration has decided to progress to the next stage of the North Rover earn-in with commencement of this drilling program. It’s exciting to have a major earn-in partner in exploring this relatively underexplored part of the EMC portfolio.”
In addition to the Rio subsidiary’s search for non-gold minerals across the tenement, Rover has extensive gold mineralisation and Everest retains the rights to it.
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