St George on a tear on high-grade lithium assays

Shares in St George Mining have shot higher after the explorer confirmed the presence of high-grade lithium at its Mt Alexander nickel project west of Leonora.

Assays conducted on rock chip samples from outcropping pegmatite dykes at the Jailbreak prospect returned lithium grades of up to 2.7 per cent.

The rock chip assays also returned significant readings for caesium, tantalum and rubidium often associated with significant lithium deposits at depth.

The latest development comes after St George first noted the lithium potential at Mt Alexander last month.

St George said ongoing field mapping and sampling had also extended the interpreted east-west strike length of visible lithium-bearing pegmatites at Jailbreak from 400m up to 1.4km.

The company also said more than 100 additional pegmatite samples from the interpreted 15km north-south corridor within the project area had been submitted for assay.

A maiden lithium drilling campaign has been scheduled for later this month.

St George’s executive chairman John Prineas said the company was delighted the visual interpretation of lithium-bearing pegmatites had been confirmed as accurate by the first batch of laboratory assays.

“Our lithium bearing pegmatites are located in the same corridor parallel to the copperfield granite where Red Dirt Metals has announced significant lithium discoveries and flagged a pending maiden mineral resource,” he said.

“The fast-emerging lithium potential at Mt Alexander perfectly complements our continued search for more high-grade nickel-copper-PGE sulphide discoveries, which will also involve a drill campaign this quarter.”

The ground in question is held in a 75/25 joint venture with IGO, which acquired its interest in Mt Alexander in its takeover of Western Areas.

St George shares were up 1.6¢, or 40 per cent, to 5.6¢ at 1.10pm.