McDermitt Lithium

In June 2018 Jindalee announced the acquisition of two lithium sediment projects in the United States, at McDermitt and Clayton North. These projects are 100% owned by HiTech Minerals Inc., a wholly owned, US based subsidiary of Jindalee. For more detail please see our recent ASX releases here.

Jindalee was attracted to sediment hosted lithium projects by several factors:

• the mineralisation style has the potential for large scale, long life sources of lithium that sit at the lower end of the global cost curve;
• the projects are located in a mining friendly jurisdiction with significant domestic lithium demand currently satisfied by imported material; and
• there is the opportunity for Jindalee to rapidly advance the projects to create significant value for the Company.

McDERMITT

The McDermitt Lithium Project is located in SE Oregon and was generated by the Company after an extensive search across the western US. An initial four hole drilling program completed in September 2018 intersected broad widths of sediment hosted lithium mineralisation over significant distances, highlighting the potential for the Project to host a very large lithium resource.

Jindalee completed five drilling programs for a total of 62 holes (33 RC and 29 Diamond) at McDermitt from September 2018 to October 2022. The programs were designed to infill and extend successive Mineral Resource Estimates (MRE) at the Project and were extremely successful, with every hole intersecting significant broad zones of mineralisation, usually from shallow depths.

Figure 1 – Schematic section across the McDermitt deposit with significant intercepts greater than 1,000ppm. 

A total of 21 holes were drilled at McDermitt in 2H 2022 to both infill and extend the MRE, with most holes returning substantial widths of lithium mineralisation from shallow depths, including:

• 182.2m @ 1197 ppm Li from 21.4m (MDD025)
• 131.6m @ 1219 ppm Li from 21.9m (MDD028)
•   68.6m @ 1669 ppm Li from   0.0m (MDRC024) 
•   50.3m @ 1512 ppm Li from   0.0m (MDRC025) 

In February 2023 Jindalee announced an updated Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource for McDermitt totaling:

3.00Bt at 1,340ppm Li for 21.5Mt LCE 

The Mineral Resource was estimated using a cut-off grade of 1,000ppm Li, which is considered appropriate in the context of similar projects and based on an assessment of the likelihood of future economic extraction as required by the JORC (2012) Code. 

The Company confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information included in this market announcement and that all material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning the estimates of mineral resources referenced in this market announcement continue to apply and have not materially changed.

Table 1 – Summary of the Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource at 1,000ppm Li. (NB: figures may not sum precisely due to rounding).

The results from the 2023 Mineral Resource update confirm that McDermitt is  the largest lithium deposit in the US and reinforce the significance of the McDermitt Project as a potential source of future supply to the rapidly growing US battery manufacturing industry. The US currently imports most of its lithium for Li-ion battery construction and Jindalee believes that McDermitt has the ability to provide a significant, long life supply of lithium for both domestic consumption and export.

Figure 2 – Plan view of the McDermitt Lithium Project with drill hole collars and 2023 Mineral Resource (at 1523mRL).

Jindalee intends to continue to advance and de-risk the McDermitt Project through 2023 with plans for:

• Ongoing metallurgical studies to optimise the flowsheet (increase options/further reduce costs)
• Review results of testwork being completed under MoU with POSCO
• Complete technical and financial studies to include the new MRE and latest metallurgical results
• Commence major infill and resource extensional drilling 3Q 2023 (subject to approval of the Exploration Plan of Operations lodged Jan 2023)
• Build on environmental and cultural studies completed in 2022
• Increase engagement with local community, US investors and potential partners 

Location of Jindalee’s Lithium Projects and US Battery Factories (existing & proposed)

Outcropping mineralised sediments towards the centre of the giant McDermitt lithium deposit


Drill core from MDD006 36.2m to 39.1m

Location of McDermitt deposit and Lithium America’s (TSX: LAC) Thacker Pass deposit.