Aim-listed tin and lithium developer Andrada Mining has confirmed the existence of continuous mineralisation at surface over a 6 km strike length at the ML133 mining licence area, or Lithium Ridge, located 35 km southeast of its Uis tin mine, in Namibia.

The exploration programme on the licence area, which comprised 129 separate channel lines cut over 99 individual pegmatites, has aimed to define the width and length of the mineralised trend and fill in data gaps between known lithium occurrences.

When combined, the weighted average of the 27 highest lithium grade channel lines amount to 179 m grading 1.2% lithium oxide.

Some notable results from channel samples across the entire pegmatite include 9.65 m grading 2.18% lithium oxide, 0.18% tin and 89 parts per million (ppm) tantalum as well as 12.7 m grading 1.87% lithium oxide, 0.15% tin and 61 ppm tantalum.

The primary lithium minerals identified are spodumene and petalite.

CEO Anthony Viljoen says he is encouraged by results received to date from the company’s regional exploration programme, since it highlights the potential upside of the Andrada mining licence portfolio.

“Lithium mineralisation has now been identified at all the pegmatites in the mining licence. In several cases Andrada has been at the forefront of identifying and reporting the presence of signficant lithium concentrations within these pegmatite swarms in the region.

“The channel sampling results confirm the continuity of notable lithium, tin and tantalum mineralisation over a signficant strike length,” he explains.

The results from the latest exploration work, coupled with a bulk testwork programme being conducted at the newly constructed pilot facility, will allow the Andrada team to expedite the concurrent development of the Lithium Ridge licence.

More results from reverse circulation drilling are due soon, which investigated the continuity of the Lithium Ridge pegmatites further, as well as their mineralisation at depth.

Andrada is working to delineate 200-million tonnes in the next five years, all from a close radius to the current Uis processing plant.