Impact: Very Positive
Patriot Battery Metals announced spectacular drill results for hole CV22-017 at its 100%-owned Corvette Li project in Quebec. The hole returned 2.22% Li2O over 70.1m including 3.01% LI2O over 40.7m. This is the highest grade to date returned from the property and the seventh best on a grade-thickness basis globally since early 2020. This is a highly encouraging hard rock lithium intercept, and the very first coming from the CV1 pegmatite. In addition, the intersection demonstrates a wide pegmatite and by-product tantalum potential. Lithium grades and widths of mineralization beat management’s expectations and are well beyond the 0.9-1.0% Li2O range we believe is ideal to create a suitable concentrate. Higher grades often mean lower impurities, but also improved likelihood that simple dense media separation could be used to create a dry con, rather than a flotation con with higher capex and opex. Met work would help confirm this potential. In our view, PMET is in the early stages of demonstrating that it has upwards of 20-25km of cumulative pegmatite striking on its 50km pegmatite trend. We look forward to future results from what could become one of the larger Canadian hard-rock Li discoveries from an underexplored pegmatite district.
