TSX-V- and Aim-listed Orosur Mining has provided an exploration update for its new Lithium West joint venture (JV) in Nigeria, with first results from a mapping and sampling programme on the first licence indicating abundant pegmatites are evident, with lithium oxide results in excess of 2%.

Moreover, two additional licences have been confirmed, thereby expanding Orosur’s position in key lithium districts in the country to 533 km².

While the total land area within the JV has increased, the new licences are included within the original terms of the JV agreement and thus no additional expenditure is required.

The company says it continues to assess new licences and opportunities and it is hoped this land position may be added to in the medium term.

“These outstanding results from our first field programme in Nigeria are exciting but not surprising. We pegged these licences with a very clear understanding of the geological processes in play and so we expected to find lithium.

“To then confirm this confidence and to find so many lithium-bearing pegmatites, some extremely thick, is very positive and bodes well for work on the next five licences that is under way now,” says Orosur CEO Brad George.

As announced in October, Orosur entered into a JV with Nigerian company Jurassic Mines, whereby Orosur, through a new 100%-owned UK subsidiary Lithium West, may earn up to 70% equity in the project by spending $5-million over five years in two phases.

Immediately upon signing of the JV, the company’s exploration teams mobilised to site to begin preliminary reconnaissance mapping and sampling, beginning on the westernmost exploration licence EL 43953.

The objective of the programme was to undertake preliminary geological mapping of the licence, to confirm the regional interpretation and prospectivity assessment that had led to its selection and to take a number of samples for assay with a view to planning further work.

Geological mapping quickly identified that the licence hosted numerous swarms of potentially lithium-bearing pegmatites, consistent with granitic and gneissic lithologies and the major country-scale “schist belt” structures, that had been postulated as the primary controlling structures.

Mapped pegmatite systems were noted over substantial strike lengths of several kilometres and of varying widths from sub metre, to over 30 m in one massive example.

This work programme, while preliminary in nature, has demonstrated this first licence to be highly prospective for the presence of lithium-bearing pegmatites and thus worthy of follow-up.

Crews have since moved east to the other licences in the package and it is anticipated that results from this work will be available in coming weeks.

In the meantime, follow-up soil sampling programmes over EL 43953 are being planned and the company is hopeful to start this in the near term once the other licences have been assessed.