Venus (VMC) up 30%+ on their Youanmi Lithium ann. Rox’s adjoining tenement is on strike to the South (see below) with a 10 km strike length with fertile soil samples and outcrops. Rox’s share price is down today. Go figure!
A commercial lithium deposit has to be both high grade 1% LI20 + and large scale. So far on the Venus tenement the deposit is shallow (cheap to mine), high grade and potentially large scale, to be determined by further drilling..
The high grade lode running south probably extends into the Rox tenement where the large strike length could provide the scale needed to be commercial.
Rox won’t be spending cash on drilling for the foreseeable future as they have large expenses bringing the Youanmi Gold Project into production. But they may
sell (perhaps to Venus?) or JV to raise cash, thereby avoiding a diluting share issue. They may retain a free carried stake in the project.
It’s unlikely that Rox will pivot to lithium. Rox would be confident that their outstanding MRE of 1.1m oz au @ 6.1 g/t at Youanmi will produce excellent metrics in their forthcoming PFS. Then comes the FS in Q3- 4 and the DFS in June 2025 and along way drilling to grow the reserve (DFS 1.5m oz @ 5 g/t?).
Rox won’t be in production until 2026 and part of the negativity on Rox is the timeframe. But an emerging world class lithium find should send the Rox share price soaring in the near term. We may learn more soon when MD Rob Ryan presents at the inaugural RRS Gather Round Investor Conference in Adelaide on Thursday April 4th.
(20min delay)