Exploration Progress on White Willow Lithium Project
Lithium explorer Usha Resources (Frankfurt JO0 / TSXV USHA) has secured fresh capital. As announced by CEO Deepak Varshney, the company has completed a financing round of CAD 595,000 gross. For this, the company issued 5.95 million units at CAD 0.10, each consisting of one share and one warrant.
Usha CEO Varshney expresses satisfaction with the successful replenishment of the company’s funds. With a total working capital of $1.7 million now available, the company is in a position to accelerate the planned drilling programs on its lithium projects Jackpot Lake in Nevada (brine) and White Willow in Ontario (pegmatite), he explained. Additionally, the planned listing on the Australian stock exchange is progressing, so Usha should achieve some “very significant” milestones in the coming months, Varshney added.
Exploration Progress on White Willow Lithium Project
Meanwhile, Usha has already advanced the exploration of the White Willow lithium pegmatite project. According to reports, additional drilling targets have been identified in the Bingo lithium-cesium-tantalum pegmatite swarm, potentially extending the main pegmatite swarm to more than 1.8 kilometers.
The combination of highly evolved geochemical indicators (Nb/Ta, K/Rb ratios; Ta, Rb, Cs, Li abundances), promising mineralogy (including white beryl and Nb-Ta oxides), and field textures (replacement textures, strong planar fabric) indicate a fluid-rich and highly fractionated dike swarm that, according to Usha, has great potential for spodumene.
Field Work to be Expanded
In light of this, Usha plans to extend the six-week field work to maximize opportunities for mapping, sampling, and investigation before proceeding with drilling.
To date, the company has demonstrated lithium oxide values of up to 0.5%. 76 samples contained highly anomalous lithium concentrations of over 300 ppm. Of these, 14 samples contained more than 1,000 ppm, and one sample from the host rock yielded even higher 1,300 ppm, indicating significant lithium-enriched fluids in the system. Additionally, there were significantly anomalous cesium values from the outer area of an LCT system, where Usha says spodumene is identified if present.
Also interesting are elevated tantalum values of up to 120,000 ppm Ta, which according to the company also indicates spodumene-bearing pegmatites. Interestingly, the Maple Leaf pegmatite vein shows a tantalum content of 14.64% Ta2O5. Such coarse-grained tantalite has only been found in one other location in Ontario, namely the North Aubrey pegmatite of Green Technology Metals’ Seymour Lake project. There, Green Technology has demonstrated a resource of 9.9 million tons with 1.04% Li2O…
According to Usha, the geochemical assessment also indicates that there is high potential for spodumene-bearing veins on the property. According to Selway et al., the potassium/rubidium ratio (K/Rb) is an important tool for identifying these vein types; a K/Rb ratio of 30 is indicative of rare earth pegmatites and 20 of pegmatites of the spodumene subtype. So far, Usha has identified ten pegmatites with a K/Rb ratio 30, with the lowest value at 7.5. Values below 10 are often associated with economically viable spodumene pegmatites.
Conclusion: Although it’s not ideal that Usha has to conduct financing at the current level, we believe it’s a good sign that they’ve managed to replenish their coffers. This now allows them to continue advancing work on both promising lithium projects at – hopefully – a good pace. The results of the exploration work on White Willow to date also suggest that there is good potential to discover spodumene-bearing pegmatites there. We are looking forward to the announced drilling.
