Patriot Battery Metals’s new discovery of spodumene pegmatite on its Corvette lithium property in Quebec’s James Bay region suggests strong potential for project scale growth, the company and industry experts said Wednesday.
The company reports 3 drill holes at CV9 yielded intersections over 60 metres, encountering nearly 100 metres of continuous pegmatites. The CV9 spodumene pegmatite, about 14 km west of the CV5 pegmatite with an inferred resource of 109.2 million tonnes at 1.42% lithium oxide, stands as North America’s largest pegmatite resource.
Katie Lachapelle, a Canaccord Genuity Capital Markets mining analyst, sees these early CV9 results as further evidence of Patriot’s Corvette property’s potential. She ranks Corvette as the largest lithium pegmatite resource in the Americas based on contained lithium carbonate equivalent and one of the world’s top 10.
“Preliminary observations reveal wide pegmatite intervals predominantly bearing spodumene,” Lachapelle noted to clients. “These results at CV9 enhance Corvette property’s prospectivity and potential for significant scale through new discoveries.”
More than 140 assays from the summer-fall program at Corvette are pending. The focus was on delineation drilling at CV5 and CV13, but 18 holes were completed at CV9. Assay results for these holes are expected in early 2024.
Freeze-up has paused drilling, set to resume in January with 10 rigs. The company’s extensive drilling plans anticipate an updated mineral resource estimate for the project by mid-2024.
Current drilling interprets the CV9 pegmatite as a single principal dyke with at least a 450-metre strike length and ongoing expansion.
The dyke’s width varies, but initial drilling suggests pegmatite thickening to at least 80 metres in one location, remaining open in multiple directions. This thickening appears in holes CV23-333, CV23-315, and CV23-345, each intersecting over 60 metres.
Darren Smith, Patriot’s vice president for exploration, described the CV9 pegmatite drill exploration as a strong start in a news release. “The spodumene presence and lengthy pegmatite in multiple holes, particularly the final hole’s approximate 100-metre near-continuous spodumene-bearing hit, indicate significant scale potential,” he stated.
The company completed about 4,000 metres of NQ coring across 18 holes.
At $9.75, Patriot shares rose 5.3% Wednesday, having touched $5.51 and $17.74 over the past 12 months. It has a market capitalization of $1.1 billion.
