Battery materials company American Battery Technology Company said drilling exploration in the Tonopah Flats lithium project in Nevada has been positive.
The infill and step-out drilling programme consisted of eight holes totalling approximately 6,700 feet of sampling. The company said it achieved the target core drilling depth of over 1,400 feet, one of the deepest lithium sampling activities in the region.
The company has received third-party assay results for six of the eight holes, and further support the development of this project.
ABTC CEO Ryan Melsert said: “It is extremely rare to identify a resource where nearly every sample taken at depth is above its minimum cut-off concentration. And we are extremely pleased that the assay results of our initial six holes of our eight-hole third drill programme continue to demonstrate that this is one of the premier lithium resources in the United States.”
Results show lithium concentrations above the reference cut-off concentration of 300 ppmw. Anomalous lithium concentrations were measured at very shallow depths.
The company said building on the success of this demonstration system and scale-up of its primary refining system, it will further evolve this project. It plans to construct a commercial-scale lithium hydroxide refinery utilising this system design.
In October 2022, ABTC and partners (DuPont Water Solutions, University of Nevada, Reno, and Argonne National Laboratory) were selected for an additional grant by the US DOE for a $115 million commercial-scale refinery project.
