Stock Head getting behind LRDLORD RESOURCES (ASX:LRD)Phase 1...

Stock Head getting behind LRD


LORD RESOURCES (ASX:LRD)

Phase 1 exploration drilling at Lord Resources’ Horse Rocks has found a fractionated lithium-caesium-tantalum system with anomalous intercepts at shallow depths.
Geological interpretation indicates the pegmatites are a series of stacked sheets, dipping at a low angle towards the east while a structural control is evident to the placement of pegmatite intrusions.

The pegmatites also tend to thicken at or near the contacts of the north-south trending ultramafic and high-magnesium basalt units.

LRD says elevated lithium assays within sheared greenstone lithologies are likely to be from lithium-rich fluids coming from deeper pegmatite intrusions, which provides further evidence that lithium-bearing pegmatites may be present deeper within the system.

Assays have been sent to the lab and the company is eagerly awaiting results, as it plans to carry out structural reviews, including obtaining magnetic and radiometric geophysical datasets.

• China’s battery manufacturing is on the rise again
• Livent is livid about impending refined lithium shortages
• Aussies are batting well in Canada, again

All your lithium news, Wednesday, June 14.

Good news coming out of China recently, as its lithium-ion battery sector maintained growth momentum in the first two months of this year, according to official data.

Total output of lithium-ion batteries exceeded 102 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in the period, jumping 24% year-on-year, said China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Lithium-ion batteries used for power storage surpassed 15GWh, while the installed capacity of power batteries for EVs came in at about 38GWh.

China’s exports of lithium-ion batteries reached 70.6 billion yuan (about US$10.26bn) in January and February.

Growth on the manufacturing side of things means replacement materials such as lithium and its other component elements should see an uptick in imports from the Chinese market.

Meanwhile, Livent is worried about shortfalls in battery-grade lithium, as the market is getting tighter.

“There is no consensus across the industry as to what makes a lithium spec. Those specs are getting tighter, those requirements are getting tighter, so as long as we keep moving in that direction, it’s very hard to envision a world in which lithium becomes commoditised and we enter into a potential oversupply,” Livent’s North American operations manager Sarah Maryssael said.