Delta was formerly known as Red Dirt Metals, with shareholders...

Delta was formerly known as Red Dirt Metals, with shareholders approving the name change at a meeting held yesterday.

Executive chairman David Flanagan said the name change was about casting aside the company's former gold focus "and becoming lithium-focused in every respect".

"Ultimately, we wanted something that people could say, that people could spell and something that wasn't associated with a competitor," he told MNN.

Mt Ida

Delta hopes to be in production at Mt Ida project in the Eastern Goldfields by the end of this year via a direct shipping ore operation while working on a concentrate operation.

Mt Ida has a resource of 12.7 million tonnes at 1.2% lithium oxide.

The company submitted its mining proposal late last month.

Mt Ida already sits on a granted mining lease so Flanagan is hoping the approvals process will be quick.

"So if we get approval in November, we want to be ready to start mining in November," he said, noting the company had allowed the maximum time.

"The Department of Mines website says that their target is to have 80% of mining proposals through the system within 30 days.

"The quality of our proposal, we think it's perfectly positioned to be quick."

In the meantime, drilling is continuing with six rigs onsite.

"We're drilling like mad," Flanagan said.

Earlier this week, the company reported a new discovery at Mt Ida of 90m at 0.95% from 650.8m outside the resource.

Yinnetharra

Delta's second asset is Yinnetharra in the Gascoyne region, which is earlier stage but could be even larger than Mt Ida.

The project covers 575sq.km with more than 50 pegmatites identified at the Malinda prospect alone.

Delta plans to drill 400 holes or 90,000m at Yinnetharra in 2023.

The largest portion of Flanagan's performance rights will vest on the delivery of a 100Mt resource.

He said the project was "shaping up beautifully - it's looking really serious".

Lithium demand

Flanagan said the phone had been "ringing a lot" with calls coming in from potential customers.

At this stage, 14 different parties have expressed interest in buying product with "probably more" to come.

"So it's a bit hard to tell whether we're getting an increased level of interest because demand's peaking or because people are just seeing us as a more serious player in the industry," Flanagan said.

"But we're approaching a point now where [the Chinese] have got record low stockpiles."

Flanagan said investors were seeing past the recent price rout in lithium prices.

"The fact that Albemarle are bidding for Liontown - that's real money into a lithium project in Western Australia," he said.

"There's not a long list of lithium companies that are in the process to be permitted here. At the moment, it's Liontown and then us and there's no one in the queue behind us."

Earlier this week, analysts from Citi said M&A in the lithium space was likely to focus on juniors with resources including Delta, Essential Metals and Global Lithium Resources.

Delta has a current market capitalisation of $207 million.