Battery Metals: Liontown builds lithium war chest after more high-grade hits

Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR), one of the best performing small-cap battery metal stocks on the ASX in 2019, is gearing up for an interim resource update at its flagship Kathleen Valley lithium-tantalum project in Western Australia.

This comes after its ongoing drilling program continued to intersect thick, high-grade mineralised zones that highlight why the company was a market darling last year.

Top hits included a 10.4m intersection grading 3.8 per cent lithium oxide from a depth of 299.9m and a thick 33.4m zone at 2 per cent lithium oxide from 199.3m.

The latest results confirm the strike and dip continuity of the growing Kathleen Valley lithium system with multiple zones of high-grade mineralisation intersected.

Liontown said mineralised pegmatites had now been intersected over a 1.7km strike length with the system remaining opening to the north and at depth.

An interim resource update is scheduled to be released in mid-February while infill drilling will continue under the end of the month.

Data from the drilling will be used to prepare a final resource estimate that will underpin a definitive feasibility study, which the company expects to improve on the already solid numbers from its pre-feasibility study.

NOW READ: High Voltage: These explorers stood tall in a tough year for battery metals

In other ASX battery metals news today:

Lithium Australia (ASX:LIT) has increased its stake in Australia’s only battery recycler, Envirostream, from 84 per cent to 90 per cent. In December, Envirostream shipped its first batch of mixed metal dust (MMD) containing energy metals such as cobalt, nickel and lithium from its expanded plant in Melbourne to South Korea.

The plant is designed to recover about 95 per cent of the materials from a range of used batteries including lithium-ion, alkaline and nickel-metal-hydride batteries.