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Patriot Battery Metals (TSXV: PMET; ASX: PMT) has announced high lithium oxide (Li2O) recoveries from heavy liquid separation (HLS) testing on pegmatites from its Corvette property in Quebec. The news, which sent its shares 6% higher by mid-day, comes ahead of an initial resource estimate for Corvette due out this month.
The HLS tests, including magnetic separation on five core samples at the CV13 pegmatite cluster, resulted in spodumene concentrate grading more than 6% lithium oxide at overall lithium recoveries higher than 70%, the company said in a release on Tuesday. Recoveries were also strong on the lower-grade samples, indicating that the coarse-grained texture of the spodumene is more amenable to liberation.
Previous metallurgical testing was conducted on the CV5 pegmatite cluster, where the company has concentrated drilling so far.
The HLS testing also indicates that an operation at CV13 using only dense media separation (DMS) is possible, the Vancouver-based explorer said. DMS is the preferred method of spodumene pegmatite processing due to its lower costs and risks.
“The results of this HLS testwork at CV13 are very positive and indicate strongly that joint processing with CV5 pegmatite material is practical and viable,” said mineral process consultant and project steering group member Brett Grosvenor. “From a project development, risk mitigation, and flowsheet perspective, it is difficult to ask for a better result.”
The five samples were collected from drill holes across the western, central and eastern parts of the 2.2-km trend of the CV13 cluster.
Joint processing of pegmatites from CV5 and CV13, located about 3.8 km along trend and west of CV5, would reduce infrastructure impacts at the site in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region.
Patriot said the data shows that both pegmatites could be crushed and feed the same process plant, with a marketable spodumene concentrate of more than 5.5% Li2O.
For its next step, the company aims to collect a representative drill core sample over the summer and fall of 2023 to feed a DMS pilot plant.
The test results follow Patriot reporting in March that its 20,000-metre winter drilling program lengthened the CV5 deposit strike by another 550 metres to 3.2 km. The CV lithium trend, discovered by Patriot in 2017 spans more than 25 km across the Corvette property.
The positive test work also comes just over one week after Patriot denied a report in Australian media that it had directed Macquarie Capital to seek out potential buyers for the company. The explorer instead said it had appointed advisers and “key personnel” to support the continued development of Corvette.
Patriot suspended field work at Corvette last month as more than a dozen mining operators in Quebec paused operations due to the early and intense wildfire season, regarded by experts to be the most severe in Canadian history.
Patriot shares rose 6.4% on Tuesday in Toronto to C$16.03, before settling to C$15.98 on Wednesday for a market cap of C$1.4 billion.
