14 November 2016
Market Announcements Platform ASX Limited
Exchange Centre 20 Bridge Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Exciting Lithium Exploration Projects in Namibia
Auroch Minerals Limited (Auroch or the Company) is pleased to advise it has applied for five new Exclusive Prospecting Licences (EPLs) in the Erongo Region of Namibia.
The Karibib Lithium Project
The application of these licence occurs after a lengthy global search by the Auroch technical team that focussed on the following key criteria:
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Presence of significant historic lithium production within the geological terrain.
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Identification of untested pegmatites with strongly fractionated geochemistry indicative of potential lithium tantalum mineralisation.
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Documented lithium occurrences in or adjacent to the licence areas
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A low risk political environment with stable government including a well-developed mineral law and social licence to explore.
Importantly these five tenements meet all these criteria and occur in the same geological terrain that hosts the Rubikon and the Helikon mines Namibia's two historical lithium producing mines.
Dr Andrew Tunks Auroch CEO commented:
"After an expansive search Auroch has selected the Karibib area of Namibia to focus its lithium exploration activities. Over 90% of Namibia's lithium production has come from the Karibib area, however there has been little modern exploration and almost no drilling of the many known lithium occurrences making this an exciting exploration opportunity. As an added extra there is also the possibility for gold exploration success in the two northern licences that host similar geology to nearby multi-million ounce Navachab gold mine."
Historic Lithium Production from the Karibib Area
The Rubikon and Helikon mines operated from 1980 to 1984 producing lithium, beryl and ultra pure "optical" quartz. Production records are incomplete but the main lithium production was from petalite, amblygonite and lepidolite.
At both the Rubikon and Helikon operations the ore zones formed within a zoned pegmatite bodies up to 50m in width and over several hundred metres along strike. The pegmatites are intruded into the metamorphosed Karibib Formation and Pan-African aged granites that also intruded the surrounding metamorphic rocks. The location of the Rubikon and Helikon deposits and the five new licence applications are shown on Figure 1.
Navachab Au mine
Karibib
Helikon Li Mine
Rubikon Li Mine
Township
Historical Lithium mine Current Gold mine
Figure 1: Location map of all five EPLs in reference to the Rubicon and Helikon Lithium and Navachab Gold mines
Regional Prospectivity of Erongo area
Although the five new licences are currently in the application phase, Auroch has already completed significant desktop research on mineral occurrences throughout the area. This work has been supported by reconnaissance mapping aimed at locating pegmatite swarms in the areas. No sampling has yet been undertaken, however now that the applications are submitted, Namibian mining and exploration laws will allow preliminary mapping and non-intrusive sampling prior to granting of the full licence. This reconnaissance work will commence in early November 2016.
Interestingly, the two northern most licences- Okatjiho EPL6484 and Orutjiva EPL6482 also overlie extensions of the Karibib Marble formation, that is the host to the gold orebodies at the Navachab Gold Mine. Navachab produces between 65,000 to 80,000 oz of gold per annum and is operated by QKR who purchased the mine from AngloGold Ashanti in 2014. At that time Navachab had gold Mineral Resources of 3.9 million ounces and gold Ore Reserves of 1.92 million ounces. Auroch desktop studies indicate considerable gold exploration upside on these two licences and the exploration team will couple its lithium exploration with an evaluation of the gold potential for these areas.
New Licence Details
Namibian law allows the applications to overlap current granted licences provided there is no conflict in target mineral groups. These mineral groups are; Base and Rare Metals, Dimension Stone, Industrial Minerals (includes Lithium), Non-nuclear Fuels, Nuclear Fuel (there is a current moratorium on this class) Precious Metals, Precious Stones, Semi-Precious Stones. The details of the new applications are shown in Table 1 below and in Figure 1.
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Licence
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Licence #
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Base & Rare Metals
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Precious Metals
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Industrial Metals
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Area (Km2)
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Garums
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EPL6840
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X
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X
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X
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486
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Okattjiho
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EPL6484
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X
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X
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X
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300
|
|
Orutjiva
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EPL6482
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X
|
X
|
X
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200
|
|
Moria
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EPL6841
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X
|
X
|
X
|
793
|
|
Narubis
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EPL6483
|
X
|
297
|
Note: The Narubis licence overlies an pre-existing EPL for Base and Precious metals, correspondingly only industrial minerals (including lithium) could be applied for.
Initial Work Plan
Prior to the granting of the licences (expected within 3-6 months) the initial work plan will involve field traverse to locate all pegmatites within the licences, this will be followed by non-intrusive rock chip sampling and broad spaced sampling to examine the geochemistry of the pegmatites and confirm they have the right signatures for Li, Ce Ta mineralisation. This work will commence in November 2016.
Common Lithium Minerals mentioned in report
Lithium occurs in a range of different minerals across a variety of different geological deposit styles. The major Li bearing minerals along with their maximum grades are shown below for reference.
Petalite - Li AlSi4O10 up to 4.5%Li2O
Amblygonite - ((Li,Na)Al(PO4)(F,OH) up to 7.4% Li2O Lepidolite - K(Li ,Al)3(SiAl)4(F,OH)2 up to 7.4% Li2O Spodumene - LiAl(SiO3)2 up to 8.03%Li2O
For further information, visit www.aurochminerals.com or contact: Dr. Andrew Tunks
Chief Executive Officer Auroch Minerals Limited T: +61 8 9486 4036