Venus Metals Corporation has received a further boost to its war chest with battery metal focussed eMetals Ltd this week forking out $160,000 to complete the purchase of Venus’ Poona Lithium project in WA. The sale allows Venus to shift its focus to a range of new project areas in the fertile terranes surrounding the Youanmi mining region.
This payment closes the second deal between the two companies for 2020, with the eMetals having purchased the Nardoo project from Venus back in March.
The Poona project was one of a suite highly prospective lithium projects picked up by Venus in recent years as it aggressively pursued a multi-commodity acquisition strategy across WA. The project boasts a solid address, being west of the gold mining town of Cue and it is located immediately north of Westgold’s Big Bell gold mine in the resource-rich Murchison region of Western Australia.
Poona covers nearly 500 square kilometres of prospective lithium terrane and hosts a number of recognised lithium-tantalum occurrences across the project area including Paton’s Lode, Poona Reward and Coodardy North.
Whilst the Poona sale has the potential to generate even more cash for Venus too as it encapsulates a series of lucrative trailing payments, including performance payments of up to $100,000 upon the delineation of significant resources and reserves. However, perhaps the icing on the cake comes from the royalty that Venus has slotted into the deal.
That royalty will see Venus pick up $0.50 per tonne relating to any future production from the primary tenement, E 20/896. To put this in some perspective, the Pilgangoora lithium mine in the Pilbara is set up to process 5 million tonnes per annum.
Venus has already demonstrated the potential of the Poona project in early exploration work with rock chip samples returning high-grades of both lithium and rubidium whilst scout drilling also returned significant widths of lithium mineralisation in shallow drill holes – a strong impetus for ongoing exploration.
Venus clearly has bigger fish to fry as it looks to build on its success in the Youanmi mining region in Western Australia which has enjoyed something of a resurgence in recent times courtesy of a number of sizeable gold discoveries.
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