Force Commodities to use same drilling company as AVZ Minerals for Kitotolo and Kanuka
Exploration program commencing at Force Commodities’ Kitotolo lithium project.
Force Commodities (ASX: 4CE) has contracted Equity Drilling to carry out about 20,000m of drilling across its flagship Kitotolo lithium project and its recently acquired 50%-owned Kanuka lithium asset in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Equity is the same contractor that is completing diamond drilling across AVZ Minerals’ (ASX: AVZ) nearby Manono lithium project.
Under the contract for Kitotolo, Equity will undertake a 150-hole, 16,000m of aircore-reverse circulation and diamond core drilling across Kitotolo once the 4,000m drilling program at Kanuka has been completed.
Drilling at Kitotolo will target areas where high-grade lithium was returned during phase one trenching and test pitting at the project.
Trenching results from Kitotolo were reported in late February and included 10m grading 0.25% lithium, with a 1m interval containing 0.53% lithium, 20m grading 0.21% lithium, including a 1m interval with 0.67% lithium, and 21m grading 0.26% lithium with a 4m interval grading 0.50% lithium.
Kanuka joint venture close to AVZ’s Manono
The larger program at Kitotolo will follow 4,000m of aircore-reverse circulation and diamond drilling at the recently acquired Kanuka asset after the joint venture was officially executed last week with Kanuka Mining Company SARL.
Kanuka comprises a mining licence and an exploration licence and covers 194 square kilometres east of Kitotolo and only 4km from AVZ’s Manono project where massive intersections with visible spodumene were identified last month and earlier this year.
The largest drill intersections to come out of Manono have been 282.95m and 295.05m thick, with AVZ claiming spodumene mineralisation was visible to the naked eye in both.
AVZ is aiming to develop a resource of 1.2 billion tonnes grading 1.5% lithium. However, at this stage, this target is purely conceptual.
According to Force, pegmatite is exposed across about 3km of strike and 200m widths at Kanuka with the project hosting historic and current mining operations.
Grab samples at Kanuka have returned up to 2.12% lithium and similar to Kitotolo, Kanuka has access to infrastructure including power, mining camp and offices and airstrip.
Shares in Force were steady at A$0.093 by late afternoon trade.