Australian gold exploration company Riversgold has signed an agreement with private company Redstone Metals to acquire the ELA 47/5069 tenement in Pilbara, Western Australia (WA).
Riversgold will acquire the 74km² tenement, which lies 8km directly along strike from Azure Minerals’s Andover lithium project, whose drilling intersections were up to 209.4m at 1.42% lithium dioxide (Li₂O).
The pegmatites at Andover occur within the north-east-trending structural corridor, which is 5km wide.
The company stated that priority geophysics and drilling programmes will soon begin testing new pegmatite targets within the tenement.
Riversgold plans to acquire the tenement by paying A$50,000 ($32,791) to Redstone Metals within five days of executing the sale agreement.
Upon either the grant of the tenement or withdrawal of application, or eight calendar months from the date of execution, whichever is earlier, the company will issue its shares with a total value of A$150,000.
The shares will be valued at a ten-day volume-weighted average price on the Australian Stock Exchange immediately before the issue date.
Riversgold chairman David Lenigas said: “To pick up such a sizeable tenement in the heart of what is turning out to be a new lithium province, following Azure’s lithium discovery at Andover, is brilliant for us. With the tenement’s location being so close to Karratha, exploration here can be almost year-round, something not always possible in the Pilbara region.
“The geology of this tenement appears to be somewhat similar to Andover, with the difference being a lot of the ground is under shallow cover. Following the grant of this new tenement, the next steps will include geophysics programmes designed to identify buried pegmatites, which will then be tested with shallow bedrock drilling.
“The drilling will test for buried pegmatites within this highly prospective tenement within what is now recognised as a world-class lithium pegmatite region.”
In August 2023, the company entered an option deal to acquire a 100% interest in seven lithium-prospective projects (collectively called the Abigail lithium project) in Canada from Abigail Lake.
Located within the James Bay district in Quebec Province, the project sits between Critical Element’s Rose lithium deposit and Nemaska Lithium’s Whabouchi deposit.
