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Multi-mineral explorer Raiden Resources Ltd (ASX:RDN) – whose main focus is the Pilbara region of Western Australia, where it is looking for lithium, gold, nickel and copper – is gearing up for a strong timetable of drilling work in the last quarter of the 2024 calendar year, as it finalises heritage surveys and approvals.
Raiden’s prize lithium plays – Andover South and Andover North – have both been progressing through heritage surveys since early this year, with these being completed in collaboration with the Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation (NAC) on 31st March and 8th April 2024 respectively.
And a further step towards exploration was announced this week, with Raiden telling investors on (Wednesday) August 21 that it was drawing up a drilling timetable for Andover South, having received news that a State Deed for the granting of tenement E47/4062 has been executed between NAC and the tenement vendor.
Once the tenement itself is granted, Raiden will submit a programme of work (PoW) for diamond drilling on E47/4062, with this programme to be approved by the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DEMIRS) – a process which could take as little as 15 working days.
Managing Director Dusko Ljubojevic said the company could be expected to move quickly on to exploration work from there.
“With heritage approvals in place and the State Deed for E47/4062 now executed between the tenement vendor and NAC, management is pleased to announce an expected timeline to commence the maiden diamond drilling program over the Andover South Lithium Project,” he said.
“Remaining steps for this major milestone now follow the grant of the tenement & target
timeframes set by DEMIRS for approval of the PoW.
“Earthmoving and drilling contractors are ready for deployment immediately pending PoW approval.”
Meanwhile, over at Andover North, the focus is on planning for target definition work, now that the heritage survey with NAC has been completed.
Both of these projects lie adjacent to the Andover deposit which was being developed by Azure Minerals before the latter’s takeover by Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd and Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile S.A. (SQM) in May this year.
All three lithium projects are located within a Mafic-Ultramafic Intrusive Complex also known as ‘Andover’, and Raiden has been working through datasets for this complex – as well as observations of outcropping pegmatites at its southern permits – to guide its exploration plans.
At Andover South, it has mapped outcropping pegmatites over a 4.2-kilometre strike length and defined individual pegmatite dykes with widths of up to 50-metres.
Andover North however, is noted as having shallow sediment cover obscuring potential pegmatites, although the datasets – which are both recent and historical, including geophysics – have given hints of prospective mineralisation there.
This has included the presence of a consistent magnetic signature among the rocks underlying Andover North, which shows the Andover Complex is much larger than previously mapped.
After picking up both sets of tenements last year, Raiden used X-ray diffractions to show that spodumene – the mineral found in lithium-rich granitic pegmatites – was the dominant lithium mineral at Andover South, a trend also seen at Azure’s world class discovery.
Having followed the Azure story of lithium in the Pilbara thus far, Raiden is seeking to progress a dual track, parallel exploration campaign over the Andover South and North projects.
However, the Andover projects are not the only ones that interest the company in the Pilbara region. Last month, the company told investors – in its quarterly activities report – that the Mt Sholl Ni-Cu Project, which is located 22 kilometres southeast of Karratha, was also gearing up for drilling work in the next quarter.
The drilling work will be conducted by First Quantum Minerals Ltd, with whom Raiden signed an MOU in December in relation to Mt Scholl. According to this agreement, First Quantum can earn an option to acquire up to a 70% interest in the play through its funding and carrying out of this exploration.
And at the company’s Arrow Gold Project – located 110 km southwest of Port Hedland – a binding earn-in agreement with Mallina Co Pty Ltd which was facilitated during the last quarter will see the latter company spend at least $600,000 in exploration, including at least 3,000 metres of AC drilling, within 12 months of the agreement’s execution.
The next stage will see Mallina offered the chance to continue with the Farm-In (and pay Raiden $250,000 in cash or shares in the company if it has listed on the Australian Stock Exchange), and can then sole finance a further exploration campaign of 17,000 metres of diamond or RC drilling to earn into a 51% interest in the project.
Within this arrangement, Raiden will retain all rights to Arrow’s Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum and associated mineralisation in the project.
