Astute Metals’ Red Mountain stands out from pack with thickest lithium hit to date

• Astute Metals’ drilling returns thickest lithium intercept to date of 95m at 1340ppm lithium at Red Mountain
• Holes RMDD006 and RMDD007 also returned multiple intersections of lithium mineralisation
• Assays pending for a further two holes with drill results to help guide further drilling in 2025

Special Report: Assaying of Astute Metals’ April 2025 diamond drilling program have returned the widest lithium intersection to date of 95m grading 1340ppm lithium at its Red Mountain project in Nevada.

As icing on the cake, both holes for which the company had received results from had intersected multiple intersections of lithium mineralisation.

Besides the thickest zone of mineralisation that was encountered from a down-hole depth of 54.9m, hole RMDD007 also delivered intercepts of 5.4m at 2320ppm lithium from 154m and 24.3m at 1290ppm lithium from 180.4m.

Meanwhile, hole RMDD006 returned intersections of 24.3m at 1040ppm lithium from 7.6m, 9.6m at 1040ppm lithium from 57.5m, and 31.8m at 1120ppm lithium from 74.7m.

The results strengthen Astute Metals’ (ASX:ASE) understanding of lithium mineralisation at Red Mountain with chairman Tony Leibowitz saying the consistently high-grade nature of lithium mineralisation demonstrates that it stands out from other lithium clay projects in the US.

“The results from these latest two holes continue to affirm the company’s interpretation of a strike-extensive and high-grade lithium deposit at Red Mountain, returning broad mineralised intercepts that will feed into our planned maiden mineral resource estimate for Red Mountain later this year,” he added.

Earlier results included hole RMDD005 returning 80.8m at 860ppm lithium from 12.2m and 15.9m at 955ppm lithium from 233.2m from testing under cover within the exploration target area while RMDD003 – the northernmost hole the company has drilled to date – extended the strike length of mineralisation to >5.6km.

Red Mountain project background

The Red Mountain in central-eastern Nevada is adjacent to the Grand Army of the Republic Highway (Route 6), which links the regional mining towns of Ely and Tonopah.

It hosts broad mapped tertiary lacustrine (lake) sedimentary rocks of a type known to host large lithium deposits such as Lithium Americas’ 62.1Mt LCE Thacker Pass project, American Battery Technology Corp’s 15.8Mt LCE Tonopah Flats deposit and American Lithium’s 9.79Mt LCE TLC project elsewhere in the state.

ASE’s surface sampling has indicated widespread lithium anomalism at the project while drilling to date has intersected strong mineralisation in every hole.

The company also carried out beneficiation testwork that has confirmed the capacity to upgrade mineralisation with the second phase successfully reducing sample mass by 51.8%, increasing lithium grade by 38% and achieving a 66.6% overall lithium recovery to produce a lithium clay concentrate with grades of up to 4,480 ppm.

Scoping leachability testwork on mineralised material from Red Mountain has also indicated high leachability of lithium of up to 98%, varying with temperature, acid strength and leaching duration.

Samples from the final two holes – RMDD004 and RMDD008 – in the diamond drilling program are currently awaiting processing at the laboratory with assays expected in July.

Once these assays are received, the company will integrate the results of the April 2025 drill program with previous drilling results to inform its drilling plans for the second half of 2025 with a view to completing a maiden resource estimate by the end of the year.

This article was developed in collaboration with Astute Metals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing. 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.