Looking at your comments, I'm wondering whether the area you have invested in more is one of the bulk products like Iron ore or Manganese where concentration does occur to approx. 100%, grades may collapse from early high's and to be economic you need at surface or near surface material.
TG6 has already noted 30m of weathering. TG6 will have also considered the significant nickel drilling that has occurred in the Lake Johnston area in making this comment. We also saw it in RC07 (30 Oct) where the pegmatite was weathered resulting in most of it being lower grade. This effect is likely to play out all the way across Burmeister / Jaegermeister. TG6 has already reported no outcropping pegmatites so don't expect any at surface intercepts. It is unlikely TG6 will report any meaningful intercepts within 30m of the surface due to weathering. If your investment thesis is around potential at surface deposits with TG6 IMO you will be disappointed because it won't happen.
TG6 only had 2 drill holes in phase 2 that were less than 150m deep. With phase 3 being approx. 6,000m and from the drill holes visible and where they are being drilled most of phase 3 will be 200m or deeper drill holes. If your thesis is around finding a substantial deposit contained in the 30-100m zone, you are likely to be disappointed. Its hard enough finding lithium without imposing unnecessary constraints like being within 100m of the surface. If you are looking for a deposit with a sub 100m restriction then you have to seriously scale back your strike length. Anything north of RC24/RCD43 is going to be deeper than 100m. From RC06-RC08 its likely to be closed before getting this far south. Little if any of this pegmatite in a north/south direction will be above 100m.
For clarity, many lithium projects have strip ratios of >10:1. Some projects are now reporting 20:1 strip ratios. The shape of the ore deposit (flat vs sloped vs vertical) makes a big difference on the cost structure of the open pit (if open pit mined). If the deposit has a wide with a low slope portion as TG6 appears to have, it might support 10:1 or perhaps 15:1 as the vertical strip ratio above the ore creating the pit would then further increase this ratio. A 20m seam of ore that 180-200m vertical is likely to be inside what's economic.
The only place I've seen lithium pure metal equivalent volumes noted is the US geological survey reports. Pure lithium is reactive and needs storing in oil. It is rarely concentrated to a pure metal (although solid state batteries may change this). This means it is uncommon for someone to be trying to figure out the lithium ton's in the way you have. Additionally there is no good regular reporting of pure metal prices. Doing a calculation to pure metal equivalents doesn't assist in figuring out the value of the deposit (Lithium isn't quite the new iron ore). If you were to do this however and be technically correct the lab readings typically come back as ppm and are then multiplied by 2.153 to become Li
2O. To get back to pure metal equivalents you would need to divide the Li
2O by 2.153. (a 1.077% reading is actually only 0.5% lithium).
but appreciate the imput.
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