Right time, right people, right rocks as Tambourah sets itself for major Pilbara lithium discoveries

Tambourah Metals is showing how serious it is about the hunt for lithium in the world famous Pilbara district, building a platform for success with a collaboration with the CSIRO and a new CEO with years of experience in the lithium game.

The small cap explorer is seeking out the battery metal at its Tambourah, Nullagine and Russian Jack projects and looks to have identified the perfect leader to take the initiative.

Exploring the valley of the lithium giants, surrounded by major deposits including Pilbara Minerals’ Pilgangoora mine, MinRes and Albemarle’s Wodgina and Global Lithium’s Marble Bar deposit, highly credentialled geologist Ralf Kriege will bring over 20 years of experience in all aspects of gold, base metals, iron ore and lithium project development across Australia, Africa and South America to his new role as CEO of Tambourah Metals (ASX:TMB).

Notably, Kriege was the exploration manager at Liatam Mining, tackling the task of greenfields and brownfields exploration at the Bald Hill Lithium Mine and Cowan Lithium exploration project in the WA Goldfields.

Bald Hill was among the wave of lithium mines to open in WA in the last lithium boom, opening in March 2018 with a spodumene production capacity of 155,000tpa.

That mine is currently the subject of an ownership battle which could value it at up to $1.5 billion.

Kriege will begin at Tambourah as CEO in April, with oversight over the company’s day to day operations, working with its board to accelerate exploration and development of its lithium, gold and critical minerals portfolio.

“TMB is pleased to welcome Ralf to the position of CEO. His experience developing and identifying new lithium opportunities at Bald Hill will be an asset to the company as we seek to rapidly develop the large prospective lithium tenement holding in the Pilbara at Russian Jack, Nullagine and the Tambourah projects,” executive chairperson Rita Brooks said.

“Additionally, he will work with the team to implement the drill programs proposed at Tambourah Goldfield and the Cheela Gold Project.

“Ralf will assist the company as we advance exploration at Julimar North, WH Sth and the Achilles base metals and REE projects.”

CSIRO on board

On top of that Tambourah has entered a collaboration partnership with Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, to apply machine learning using their hyperspectral dataset to define first pass exploration targets across the Russian Jack Lithium project.

The collaboration will be undertaken under the CSIRO Kick-Start program.

Tambourah says it has previously used hyperspectral data to identify significant swarms of possible LCT pegmatites at Russian Jack.

The pegmatite swarms cover an area of roughly 320km2 with some areas of terrain that are difficult to access.

Hyperspectral datasets help zone in on areas of prospectivity, where orebodies measured in the hundreds or tens of metres in diameter can be targeted from a search area starting in the hundreds of square kilometres.

Getting Australia’s national science agency on board is a massive coup for Tambourah, helping to zero in on lithium bearing pegmatites at the project some 40km south of Nullagine.

“TMB is pleased to be working with Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, to help generate new knowledge and develop new technologies to increase confidence in the exploration for lithium bearing pegmatites over large areas in difficult terrains,” Brooks said.

“The collaboration will accelerate the identification of early-stage, high priority lithium bearing pegmatites.”

Right place, right partner, right people, right time

With the CSIRO deal and appointment of the highly experienced Kriege as CEO, Tambourah has aligned all the key elements to make a new major lithium discovery in the Pilbara.

Coming at a time when lithium prices are at levels generating extraordinary profits for producers, TMB believes it is in the right place, with the right partner and right people at the right time.

It is not the only company which has cottoned onto the lithium potential in the region.

Its nearby Tambourah project triangulates the Pilbara’s three largest spodumene orebodies in Pilgangoora, Wodgina and Marble Bar.

Just three months ago Liatam announced a C$5 million investment to accelerate lithium exploration at nearby Nullagine explorer Novo Resources, which is looking for pegmatites either side of Russian Jack and Tambourah’s Nullagine project, signalling the area around Russian Jack is fast becoming a hot exploration postcode.

Tambourah boasts a suite of highly attractive exploration projects across WA.

Also in the Pilbara it holds the Cheela gold project, halfway between Black Cat Syndicate’s ultra high grade Paulsens mine and Kalamazoo’s Mt Olympus project, while it is also exploring Archean aged greenstones for nickel-PGE-gold targets at Achilles in the Eastern Goldfields and is chasing nickel-copper-PGE prospects similar to Chalice’s Julimar discovery in the Wheatbelt at its 80% owned Julimar North ground.

This article was developed in collaboration with Tambourah Metals (ASX:TMB), 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.