Green Technology Metals expects ‘large increase’ to 8.1Mt Root Bay resource as extensional drilling gets underway

Phase 1 infill drilling returns consistent high-grade lithium at 8.1Mt Root deposit
Results to filter into resource update with Phase 2 extensional drilling planned
Wider Root project hosts 12.6Mt at 1.21% Li2O
Resource update, preliminary economic assessment for the project is pending

Advanced Canadian project developer Green Technology Metals is hitting consistently thick, high-grade lithium in infill drilling at the 8.1Mt @ 1.32% Li2O Root Bay deposit, which is about to get a whole lot bigger.

The now completed ~20,000m 119 hole ‘infill’ drilling campaign was designed to upgrade the confidence of the maiden inferred Root Bay resource of 8.1Mt @ 1.32% Li2O, part of Green Technology Metals (ASX:GT1) global resource of 22.5Mt @ 1.14% Li2O.

Significant new results include 18.2m @ 1.43% Li2O from 336.1m, 16m @ 1.52% Li2O from 297.6m, and 17.6m @ 1.36% Li2O from 46.7m.

Notably, the mineralisation at Root Bay is still open at 300m below surface.

“We are excited to see consistent high-grade results from the Root Bay infill drill program, which will enable us to increase the confidence level in our maiden Inferred resource estimate to Indicated and Measured categories,” GT1 CEO Luke Cox says.

An “expedited” updated resource for Root Bay is planned to be released early Q4 2023, prior to release of the PEA, the equivalent of a scoping study.

But there’s plenty more where that came from

Exploration at the Root Bay project has so far revealed multiple stacked LCT pegmatites, with a maiden inferred mineral resource estimate of 12.6Mt at 1.21% Li2O from the McCombe (4.5Mt at 1.01% Li2O) and Root Bay (8.1Mt at 1.32% Li2O) pegmatites.

The project is just 200kms from the company’s flagship Seymour project in Ontario, which hosts a resource of 9.9Mt at 1.04% Li2O.

GT1 reckons exploration across both projects has strong potential to grow resources “rapidly and substantially”.

A 8,440m, 46-hole Phase 2 extensional drilling campaign is set to start imminently to bolster the size of Root Bay’s lithium inventory.

The program will focus initially along the eastern side of the highly prospective, untested 3-kilometre extension of the Root Bay deposit.

The rigs will then move to the western side of the deposit where a new LCT pegmatite was discovered, 1.4km along strike.

Green Technology Metals (ASX:GT1) — Caption: Root Bay, phase 2 extensional drill plan.

“Having successfully completed the Root Phase 1 infill drill program which will greatly benefit to the upcoming project preliminary economic assessment, we are now commencing phase 2 extensional drilling campaign at Root on an untested 3km extension of the pegmatite,” Cox says.

“We will then move to a Phase 3 drill test of potential extensions identified by field exploration underway at Root Bay.

“Given we have defined a quality maiden 8Mt lithium resource at Root over the first 2km, we are anticipating a large increase in this number as we step out drilling to the east and west.”