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Charger Metals NL (ASX: CHR, ‘Charger’ or ‘the Company’) is pleased to announce it has contracted a drilling company for its maiden drill programme at the Bynoe Lithium Project, Northern Territory.
- Contract signed with Geodrilling Pty Ltd for maiden reverse circulation (RC) programme at the Bynoe Lithium Project, NT
- 2,000m programme has been designed as a first-pass test of high priority targets including the Old Bucks and Megabucks prospects
- A third high priority target called the Enterprise Prospect will also be tested with this first pass programme. Enterprise is located along strike from Core Lithium Limited’s (ASX:CXO) Blackbeard Prospect, which includes the following recently-announced significant drill intersections:
- 41m @ 1.63% Li2O from 137m (SRC117)
- 59m @ 1.54% Li2O from 158m (SRC118) and
- 71m @ 1.05% Li2O from 101m (SRC119) 1
- Drill programme scheduled to commence in the second week of May
Charger’s Managing Director, Aidan Platel, commented:
“We are excited to lock in a drilling contractor for our maiden drill programme at Bynoe. The first- pass programme will drill test priority targets including Old Bucks, Megabucks and Enterprise, where surface geochemical anomalies, historic workings and nearby drill-holes all suggest a high potential for these prospects to host significant lithium mineralisation.
We have all our required permits in place, and contracting a local drilling company in Geodrilling completed the final critical item. As the region’s “wet season” draws to a close we look forward to building momentum as we commence our maiden drill programme in the coming weeks.”
Charger has signed a drilling contract with Geodrilling Pty Ltd (“Geodrilling”), a well-respected local drilling company, for a first-pass RC programme comprising approximately 2,000m.
The drill programme has been designed to test three priority target areas that the Company believes have high prospectivity for significant pegmatite-hosted lithium mineralisation. The Old Bucks Prospect comprises a strong lithium anomaly at surface that extends over 800m in strike and up to 500m wide, with pegmatites visible in historic artisanal tin workings.
The Megabucks Prospect also comprises a lithium-in-soils anomaly up to 800m long, with a significant pegmatite up to 70m thick defined by historical deep trenching across the strike.
A third high priority target called the Enterprise Prospect will also be tested with this first pass programme. Enterprise is also delineated by a large lithium anomaly at surface, and is located along strike from Core Lithium Limited’s (ASX:CXO) Blackbeard Prospect, which includes the following recently-announced significant drill intersections:
- 41m @ 1.63% Li2O from 137m (SRC117)
- 59m @ 1.54% Li2O from 158m (SRC118) and
- 71m @ 1.05% Li2O from 101m (SRC119). 2
Earthworks will commence shortly with the drill programme scheduled to commence in the second week of May.
Figure 1. Location of the Old Bucks, Megabucks and Enterprise Prospects of the Bynoe Lithium Project that will be the focus of the maiden drill programme. Core Lithium’s drill-holes at its Blackbeard Prospect are shown for reference.2
About Charger Metals NL
Charger Metals NL is a well-funded exploration company targeting battery metals and precious metals in three emerging battery minerals provinces in Australia.
Bynoe Lithium and Gold Project, NT (Charger 70%)
The Bynoe Project occurs within the Litchfield Pegmatite Field, approximately 35 km southwest of Darwin, Northern Territory, with nearby infrastructure and excellent all-weather access. Charger’s Project is enclosed by Core Lithium Limited’s (ASX: CXO) Finniss Lithium Project, which has a mineral resource of 30.6Mt at 1.31% Li2O.3 Core Lithium, which has a $1.9B market capitalisation, has opened its mine just 7 km north of Charger’s Bynoe Lithium Project.
Geochemistry, aeromagnetic programmes and open file research completed by Charger suggests multiple swarms of LCT pegmatites that extend from the adjacent Finniss Lithium Project into the Bynoe Project. Geochemistry results highlight two large LCT pegmatite target zones, with significant strike lengths of 8km at Megabucks and 3.5km at 7-Up. Numerous drill-ready lithium targets have been identified within each pegmatite zone.
Planning and permitting for the maiden drill programme at Bynoe are complete.
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This article includes content from Charger Metals, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.
CHR:AU
Forward Water Technologies
Overview
Forward Water Technologies (TSXV:FWTC) is helping lithium mining companies and other industries reduce their environmental impact through its innovative wastewater treatment technology that enables industrial operations to reduce liquid waste volume by up to 95 percent.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings continue to be a key business strategy for organizations as they impact public perception and partnership possibilities. For water-intensive industries, such as mining, sustainable wastewater management is critical.
Transformative wastewater technologies are critical for both businesses and the world’s population. In fact, unless sufficient progress is achieved, UNICEF and WHO estimate that 1.6 billion people will be without access to safe drinking water by 2030, and 2.8 billion will be without access to safe sanitation and hygiene. Water treatment technologies can disrupt current trends and improve global access to safe drinking water.
Through its Forward Osmosis (FO) technology, Forward Water is providing an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional wastewater disposal. Traditionally, wastewater disposal requires transporting untreated wastewater for deep well disposal or high-intensity thermal treatment.
Forward Water’s FO system is installed at the client site, and wastewater is treated to reduce waste volume and produce valuable clean water for reuse in the manufacturing process. Then, the significantly reduced volume of wastewater is transported and disposed of, significantly saving on transportation and disposal costs.
The FO technology targets three massive sectors: industrial wastewater, mining and food manufacturing. Forward Water’s unique and patented FO technology achieves high-rate water extraction within a low-energy continuous process. The process reduces waste and allows up to 95 percent water recovery, ready for reuse.
Forward Water’s Li-FO™ technology is ideal for lithium-brine mining operations, allowing mines to “fine tune” brine sources to improve concentration by up to 20 times. This results in improved recovery and makes lower-concentration brines economically viable. Forward Water is currently embarking on an early development testing project to further evaluate and refine the technology’s viability in lithium mining.
In 2023, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Forward Water Technologies Inc., licensed specific intellectual property from FUJIFILM Corporation to solidify the protection of its water treatment technology platform.
CleanTech Lithium (AIM:CTL,Frankfurt:T2N,OTC:CTLHF) has contracted FWT to provide advisory services for the support and development of CleanTech Lithium's direct lithium extraction (DLE) process in Chile. The collaboration will use FWT’s industrial forward osmosis system in the hyper-concentrating of CleanTech Lithium's eluate and its conversion into battery-grade lithium carbonate through Conductive Energy's DLE process.
Howie Honeyman, CEO, explained in an interview how the company’s technology can improve lithium mining operations. “A lot of lithium being mined today around the world is coming from underground aquifers that store the lithium brine. The challenge is that the lithium is surrounded by other minerals and salts, requiring chemical ‘tweezers’ to pluck out that lithium. What we can do is, at multiple places in that process, we can concentrate that lithium-containing water stream, which makes it far easier for these miners to handle the volumes they need to extract that lithium.”
An experienced management team with technical expertise leads the company towards further refining and deploying its technology. The team includes experts in materials science, chemistry and engineering. Additional experts in corporate administration and financing round out the leadership team to lead the company toward its goals.
Company Highlights
- Forward Water Technologies has developed a patented wastewater treatment technology that reduces wastewater volume and improves reusability across multiple industries, including mining and food manufacturing.
- The company’s Forward Osmosis (FO) technology disrupts the traditional method of wastewater disposal by reducing the amount of waste that must be transported and disposed of, directly reducing costs.
- The FO technology also improves water reusability by up to 95 percent, reducing the expense of importing water for industrial processes.
- The Forward Water Technologies Li-FO™ process is applicable in the lithium mining sector by improving concentration by up to 20 times, allowing organizations to improve extraction efficiency.
- The company has partnered with a lithium-brine extraction operation to evaluate its Li-FO™ technology.
- Forward Water Technologies is in early negotiations to deliver an FWTC forward osmosis pilot system on-site in Chile to support a customer's lithium extraction process.
- Forward Water Technologies has licensed specific intellectual property from FUJIFILM Corporation to solidify the protection of its water treatment technology platform.
- The company has been contracted by CleanTech Lithium to provide advisory services for the support and development of CleanTech Lithium's direct lithium extraction processes in Chile.
- An experienced management team with a blend of relevant technical expertise leads the company toward refining and marketing its technology.
Key Project
Forward Osmosis Water Treatment
Forward Osmosis is a naturally occurring process in which water is spontaneously drawn across a membrane when one solution is higher in salt concentration than the other. The difference in salinity, known as the osmotic gradient, creates a low-energy water treatment process.
Forward Water Technologies has leveraged the naturally occurring process to innovate its patented, three-step FO technology, enabling a 95 percent wastewater reduction and 95 percent water recovery.
Project Highlights:
- Patented Three-Step Process: Forward Water Technologies FO process achieves low-energy and high-rate water extraction with a unique three-step design:
- Water Extraction: Water is drawn across the FO membrane into a salt draw solution. The combination of the patented draw solution and unique membrane “locks” the draw solution on one side of the membrane, creating a true closed-loop process.
- Water/Salt Separation: Next, a switchable water salt (SWS) achieves water/salt separation as low-grade heat is applied, and it phases from liquid to gas. As the gas leaves the solution, clean water is left behind. The energy necessary for this step is often found in many facilities in the form of waste heat.
- Salt Draw Reconcentration: Finally, as the gas leaves the solution, it is captured within the closed-loop system and is passively cooled, causing it to phase back into liquid form as an SWS. The SWS liquid is collected and recycled back to the front of the membranes in the water extraction step, creating a continuous process.
- Widely Applicable Water Treatment: The low-energy process allows organizations across several industries to improve water reclamation and reduce wastewater by up to 95 percent. Additionally, the process allows for up to 20 times concentration, making the process amenable to lithium-brine extraction and other potential applications.
- Significant Cost Savings: The primary value proposition for the FO process is cost reduction in wastewater transportation and disposal. With the process in place, more water is reclaimed for reuse in manufacturing, which reduces the raw volume of wastewater that must be transported and disposed of.
Management Team
Howie Honeyman - Chief Executive Officer and President
Dr. Howie Honeyman has 20 years of experience commercializing new technologies at Xerox, Cabot, E Ink, Natrix Separations and as former CTO of GreenCentre Canada. Honeyman commercialized high-capacity, high-throughput membranes for bioprocessing as SVP of Natrix Separations, which has since been acquired by Millipore-Sigma. Since 2015, Honeyman has been leading Forward Water to become a premier wastewater treatment solution. Honeyman is also an inventor of record on over 50 US patents and holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of Toronto.
Michael Willetts - Chief Financial Officer
Michael Willetts has over 25 years in financial leadership roles primarily in manufacturing, from large multinational businesses to startups, both public and private. He previously worked as an engineer in the automotive industry before entering into finance at Ford Motor Company. Willets went on to progressively larger finance roles in several international automotive suppliers (Textron, GKN, DSM) and Canadian manufacturers (Armtec, Stronach International, AirBoss of America). Willetts is currently providing fractional CFO services through WD Numeric Corporate Services in the manufacturing, SaaS and cannabis industries. Willetts graduated with a BASc, BComm and MBA from the University of Windsor.
Wayne Maddever - Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Wayne Maddever received his Ph.D. in materials science engineering from the University of Toronto. Since 1985, he has held senior executive management positions with technically based businesses in start-up, turnaround or acquisition situations where his skills in change management have brought considerable success in the commercialization of new technologies. His experience in both private and public companies, domestically and internationally, spans a broad variety of industries, including bio and advanced materials, precision manufacturing, recycling, waste-to-energy and medical devices. He holds a number of patents in several fields. He is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. In addition to his duties as COO of Forward Water, he is currently portfolio manager at Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, one of the major shareholders of Forward Water.
Grant Thornley - VP Engineering Solution Sales
Grant Thornley is a business strategist with more than 25 years of experience. He has developed and grown international water/wastewater markets through innovative growth hacking techniques and processes, synergized with product development and positioning, data analytics and acceleration of go-to-market strategies through alliances and partnerships. Having expertise in chemical, mechanical and biological treatment processes as well as designing hundreds of municipal and industrial applications, Thornley brings a knowledge-to-action approach to helping clients solve problems and realize new opportunities in water reuse, energy conservation and CO2 reduction.
Leonard Seed - Director of Engineering & Operations
Leonard Seed has over 18 years of experience developing and commercializing new water and wastewater treatment technologies, primarily in a start-up environment. Seed is named as an inventor on over seven patents and has authored several publications. Seed is a professional engineer and has an MSc in environmental engineering from the University of Guelph. Leonard holds inventorship on seven US patents and is an instructor at Mohawk College teaching aspects of water treatment technologies and leading research efforts on forward osmosis.
Philip Jessop - Executive Research Director
Dr. Philip Jessop is a professor and Canada Research Chair of Green Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He also serves as the technical director of GreenCentre Canada and executive research director at Forward Water Technologies. After his Ph.D. (British Columbia, 1991) and a postdoctoral appointment (Toronto, 1992), he became a contract researcher in Japan working for R. Noyori (Nobel Prize 2001). As a professor at the University of California-Davis (1996-2003) and since then at Queen’s, he has studied green solvents and the chemistry of carbon dioxide. Distinctions include the NSERC Polanyi Award (2008), Killam Research Fellowship (2010), Canadian Green Chemistry & Engineering Award (2012), Eni Award (2013), Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (2013), a Canada Research Chair Tier 1 (2013 to 2020), and the NSERC Brockhouse Prize (2019). He serves as chair of the editorial board for the journal Green Chemistry, has chaired three international conferences, and helped create GreenCentre Canada, a national center of excellence for the commercialization of green chemistry technologies. Forward Water is a spin-off company based on Dr. Jessop’s switchable solvents.
Quarterly Activities Report for the Period Ended 31 March 2024
Highlights
Solonópole Project, Ceará, Brazil
- Anomalous lithium values above 100 ppm (and up to 631 ppm) found in 383 soil samples within existing and new target areas.
- Integration and interpretation of these soil sample results with data from geophysics, geological mapping (138 line-km), trenching and RC drilling (~2,000m) further enhance prospectivity of existing and new targets.
- Combined datasets confirmed several swarms of pegmatite bodies striking in a NE-SW and E-W directions and identified new high priority areas.
- Nira interpreted to be the most prospective new target, with 180 soil samples of >100 ppm Li and as high as 524 ppm Li covering an area of at least 1km2.
- Nira also features 17 pegmatite outcrops with average widths of up to 30 meters and strike lengths from 200m to 600m.
- Planning for the next follow-up drilling campaign is underway.
Napperby Project, Northern Territory, Australia
- Oceana’s Napperby Project covers some of Arunta Province’s hottest granites plutons, the Wangala Granite (uranium) and Ennugan Mountains Granite (uranium/thorium).
- Both granite plutons show outstanding uranium/thorium ratios and are almost fully encapsulated within Napperby’s EL32836 and ELA32841.
- Follow-up exploration activities will target uranium and Rare Earth Elements (REEs) in parallel with Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum (LCT) pegmatites.
Corporate
- Experienced geologist and mining executive, Aidan Platel, appointed as non- executive director.
- Brazilian-based geologist, Mike Sousa, appointed as Exploration Manager and Competent Person.
- The Company remains well-funded with cash at 31 March of ~$2.67m.
OPERATIONS
Solonópole Project, Ceará State, Brazil
The Solonópole Project area is located in the state of Ceará, north-eastern Brazil and consists of ten (10) exploration permits covering approximately 124km2 (Figure 1), owned by Oceana’s subsidiary Ceará Litio. The project is approximately three to four hours by road from the state capital Fortaleza and deep-water port of Pecém, and is well serviced by sealed highways and high voltage electricity.
Figure 1: Solonópole Project permits and targets drilled in May – June 2023 (red dots)
Large-Scale Soil Sampling and Geological Mapping at Solonópole Lithium Project
The large-scale infill soil sampling program that commenced in March 2023 continued over the project area (Figure 2). The optimized sampling grids are along 200m spaced lines with 25m sampling stations, aligned north south to cut across all typical pegmatite strike directions in this area.
As at 31 March 2024, over 10,300 soil samples had been collected from Solonópole and 8,741 soil samples had been analysed by X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) for Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum (LCT) pathfinders, of which 1,908 soil samples have lab results validated by Oceana´s internal QA/QC. Anomalous lithium values above 100 ppm and up to 631 ppm were found in 383 soil samples within existing and new target areas.
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This article includes content from Oceana Lithium, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.
Results From First Drilling at Abbotts North Confirm LCT System
HIGHLIGHTS
- Assay results from Abbotts North confirm continuation of LCT system
- Focus shifts to targets identified to the north and east of previous drilling
- Field work over these newly identified areas has commenced
- Premier1 is fully funded for second phase exploration in these areas
A total of 11 RC holes for 1,623m were drilled to test the main outcropping pegmatites at the Buttamiah Prospect. Additional studies of the outcropping pegmatites in the larger Buttamiah Prospect area including fractionation vectoring using K/Rb ratios suggest the core of the system to be located to the east of the previous drilling.
In addition, the data indicate that LCT pegmatites occur within the granites to the north of the drill area. Further mapping and sampling of pegmatites in these areas as well as over the remaining tenement package has commenced. Focus is to delineate drill targets of higher grades and greater thickness that have the potential to form a significant lithium deposit within the existing LCT system.
Premier1 is fully funded for any subsequent phase two drilling program.
Figure 1: Cross-section of intercepted pegmatites showing significant results >0.05% Li2O.
Figure 2: Geological map of the Buttamiah Prospect with collar locations of completed RC drilling.
Significant intercepts from RC drilling undertaken on the Abbotts North project in February 2024 are shown in Table 1a. Drill collar details are shown in Table 1b.
Click here for the full ASX Release
This article includes content from Premier1 Lithium, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.