St George Mining to acquire seven hard rock lithium projects in WA

St George Mining (ASX: SGQ) has entered into an agreement to acquire full ownership of seven hard rock lithium projects in Western Australia.

The new projects comprise 14 exploration licences – 13 granted and one in application – over 653 square kilometres in the goldfields region.

The transaction will be completed between St George subsidiary Lithium Star and vendor Chariot Corporation and its subsidiary Stallion Lithium.

Lithium Star will be required to pay a cash consideration of $300,000 plus $400,000 worth of St George shares to Chariot upon completion of the sale.

A milestone payment of 15 million St George shares will be payable to Chariot on confirmation of an inferred mineral resource at any of the projects of at least 10 million tonnes grading at a minimum 1% lithium oxide.

Chariot will retain a 2% net smelter royalty in respect of any minerals produced and sold from any of the projects.

St George will have the right to buy back half the royalty in any project by paying $5 million in cash to Chariot any time prior to the project’s first commercial production.

Any cash payments made by Lithium Star for the purposes of the transaction will be sourced from St George’s current cash reserves.

Significant lithium results

The projects to be acquired are located in regions which have delivered significant lithium results for other explorers and led to the confirmation of high-grade deposits currently in development or underpinning existing mining operations.

All projects are underexplored for lithium and will become the subject of systematic exploration with the aim of unlocking resource potential.

St George executive chairman John Prineas said the acquisition is a strategic move to deliver “step-change exploration opportunities in the world’s premier hard rock lithium address”.

It follows last month’s purchase of the Woolgangie critical metals project from private vendors and the signing of the Mt Holland Area of Influence agreement with private company Cacique Resource.

Project list

St George has confirmed it will acquire seven distinct projects in the tier one jurisdiction.

The Split Rocks project comprises four granted exploration licences over 73sq km, located within the Mt Holland pegmatite field and approximately 25km north-west of the Earl Grey deposit, which is considered to be one of Australia’s largest and highest-grade lithium discoveries.

The project area is interpreted from magnetic data to host greenstone rocks under cover which may be prospective for pegmatite-hosted lithium mineralisation similar to that discovered elsewhere in the Mt Holland region.

The Buningonia and Buningonia North projects are located in the eastern goldfields within an established lithium region that hosts the Bald Hill mine (with a resource of 26 million tonnes at 1% lithium oxide), the Manna deposit (32.7Mt at 1% lithium oxide), the Dome North project (11.22Mt at 1.16% lithium oxide), the Mt Marion mine (71.3Mt at 1.37% lithium oxide), and the Anna deposit (15Mt at 1% lithium oxide).

Buningonia comprises one granted exploration licence over 38sq km while Buningonia North comprises two granted exploration licences over 19sq km.

The tenements are interpreted from magnetic data to host greenstone rocks with a favourable structural position at the confluence of two major fault zones.

At the Myuna Rocks project, three exploration licences covering 273sq km are believed to contain concealed pegmatites, while the Ten Mile West project comprises just one licence application that covers 23sq km.

The Carnamah project comprises one licence in the western margin of the Yilgarn Craton and has never before been subject to systematic exploration.

Finally, the two exploration licences making up the Lindville project have previously been mapped for pegmatites near granite contacts.