CATL and its owner, Pei Zhenhua, have pledged A$2.2 million to support LPM's quest to raise $8-10 million at 25c to prospect areas of the Top End's Bynoe and Arunta regions, where the company expects to control around 1690sq.km of tenure.
Like Core, it is aiming to leverage off work that hints at lithium-bearing pegmatites prior to 2018, and the projects' proximity to the Port of Darwin in the case of the Bynoe projects.
The company's genesis dates back to 2018 when executive chairman Dr Bin Guo acquired most of the leases from ASX-listed Kingston Resources for $1.8 million in cash.
Those projects, in the Bynoe, Litchfield, Harts Range and Barrow Creek pegmatite fields, and Alcoota region, are close to Darwin or Alice Springs
The Bynoe pegmatite field has a long history of artisanal and small-scale mining of tin and tantalum and has been a focus for lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatites over the past five years.
Core is developing a 14.7 million tonne grading 1.32% lithium resource at its Finniss project, having unlocked the potential of the field by finding fresh pegmatites with economic ore grades below the shallow cover and weathered systems.
Kingston entered the area at that time and did some drilling, mainly at the Lei prospect where there was a best result of 12m at 1.43%, just 2km southwest of Core's 3.24Mt at 1.51% BP33 deposit.
LPM believes additional drilling at the Lei and Cai prospects, and a number of soil anomalies and conceptual targets, will allow it to replicate Core's successes.
The Arunta project is split into the Spotted Wonder, Moonlight and Barrow Creek sub-projects, between 150-300km from Alice Springs, on the northern structural boundary of the Aileron Province.
It is less advanced, with poorly exposed pegmatites that have delivered evidence of spodumene, niobium, tantalite, and cassiterite, with evidence of artisanal small-scale mining of tantalum, tin and mica in the mid-1900s.
The most recent exploration was focused around the tin-tantalum fields within the Spotted Wonder tenements, with Kingston's reconnaissance flagging the Delmore and Tank Hill targets, with rock chips of up to 10.2% recovered from the former.
Lithium Plus completed some RC drilling and defined only low to moderate lithium values, with a best result of 4m at 0.29% from 19m, but high values of caesium and tantalum, suggesting more work needs to be done.
All projects have a scarcity of outcrop and laterite or black soil cover, with thick and abundant vegetation, up to 3m tall, which pose exploration challenges, but the hope is there are more world-class hard rock deposits below the surface.
LPM's board comprises founder includes geoscientist and industry consultant Guo, ex-investment banking and director Simon Kidston, structural geologist Dr Jason Berton, and the former country head of the Australian operations of China's largest investment bank, CITIC Securities, Su Su.
The company hopes to list by early May.
