DELTA LITHIUM (ASX:DLI) Everyone back aboard Delta Airlines, up...

DELTA LITHIUM (ASXLI)

Everyone back aboard Delta Airlines, up more than 7% today after the $200 million capped MinRes backed lithium explorer announced a big lithium drill result from the second of its major prospects at the Yinnetharra project in WA’s Gascoyne region.
DLI, which still had over $100 million to play with as of March 31, is down almost 40% this year so far.
There’s some overhang there from MinRes’ big stake in the junior, which controls around 40Mt of spodumene resources across its Mt Ida and Yinnetharra projects in WA.
The hit at the Jameson prospect of 71m at 1.2% Li2O, including 45m at 1.8% Li2O, will give confidence the Chris Ellison chaired explorer can extend Yinnetharra’s 25.7Mt at 1% Li2O resource beyond its 1.6km long Malinda prospect.
It covers just a fraction of the 80km strike length under Delta’s command.
There were some less exciting, narrower or lower grade strikes from Malinda also reported. But a thick hit of 94m at 0.94% Li2O, including 34m at 2% Li2O, at the M1 pegmatite has given Delta MD James Croser confidence it can add a signficant amount of lithium metal to the Yinnetharra resource.
“Malinda continues to provide us with excellent lithium results that confirm our existing resource and build our confidence in the geology. Particularly a very wide intercept in YRRD471 which will add significant lithium metal to an important part of the M1 resource,” he said.
“The first hole assay results from the Jameson Prospect JREX002 has delivered fair reward for the team’s effort, with some of the coarsest visual spodumene seen to date at Yinnetharra over a very wide downhole interval, and individual assays in excess of 4% Li2O.”
Coarseness is good in lithium terms because it improves the prospect of stronger recoveries with cheaper DMS processing as opposed to fine grained spodumene, which requires a more expensive flotation process to extract lithia for a saleable concentrate.