American Pacific Borate & Lithium Ltd. on Dec. 12 unveiled an initial resource estimate for its Fort Cady borate-lithium project in California.
The project hosts indicated and inferred resources totaling 93 million tonnes grading 6.3% boron trioxide, or B2O3, and 374 parts per million of lithium, for 5.9 million tonnes of contained B2O3, using a cutoff grade of 5% B2O3.
The company noted that the resource has a boric acid equivalent grade of 11.3% and represents 10.5 million tonnes of contained boric acid.
American Pacific Borate & Lithium also said an operating permit awarded to its Fort Cady California Corp. unit in 1995 covers 86% of the total resource at Fort Cady, solely entitling the subsidiary to commercially mine the deposit.
Mineralization remains open to the southeast, and work continues on lithium exploration and extraction with a view to identify additional lithium resources outside the defined borate resource.
The company plans to complete an initial scoping study focused on the borate project within the fourth quarter, with further drilling planned to upgrade resources and assess lithium potential.
American Pacific Borate & Lithium will also complete additional laboratory testing ahead of pilot-scale leach tests and aims to complete a definitive feasibility study by July 2018.
