Redzone names Nemaska Lithium consultant to advisory board

Redzone Resources Ltd. [REZ-TSXV, REZZF-OTC: REZZF] said Tuesday it has appointed Jean-Philippe Paiement to the company’s advisory board. Paiement currently works for a leading mining-focused private equity fund. Prior to that, he worked with SGS Canada Inc., a global mining consultancy where he was involved with Nemaska Lithium Inc. [NMX-TSX, NMKEF-OTCQX, NOT-Frankfurt] for close to five years.

Redzone shares advanced on the news, rising 1.96% or $0.005 to 26 cents on Tuesday.

Nemaska is working on a plan to raise between US$775 million and US$825 million to fund the construction of a lithium mine on the Whabouchi property and electrochemical plant near the Cree community of Nemaska, about 300 northwest of Chibougamau, Que.

Paiement is considered a Qualified Person for lithium, and precious and base metals. At Nemaska, his responsibilities included resource modelling and estimation, exploration and drilling oversight, feasibility study management and acting geologist between 2014 and 2018.

He is expected to join the Redzone board at the company’s next annual meeting.

Redzone is an exploration company with a focus on metals that make up and support the rapid evolution to battery power.

It is involved in two key projects. They are the Fortner Boyd Lithium property in Arizona and the Lara Property in Peru.

The Fortner Boyd claims (also known as the Lucky Mica claim group) are staked in the name of Godolphin Mining Inc., an Arizona corporation. Godolphin and Redzone entered into an agreement whereby RedZone was granted the right acquire 100% interest in the property. In return RedZone agreed to make a US$47,500 cash payment and issue 300,000 common shares to two vendors.

Under the agreement, RedZone also pledged to pay a 0.667% net smelter return royalty to the vendors on all minerals produced, mined or otherwise recovered from the property. It also secured to the right to purchase 100% of the royalty for $1 million.

Redzone recently said it has located and staked an additional 36 lode claims, or 744 acres at or near its Fortner & Boyd Lithium Property. The area increases the company’s total land holding by 18% to 236 lode claims totaling 4,876 acres.

Meanwhile, a National Instrument 43-101 compliant technical report, dated February 13, 2017 showed that sampling of the previously discovered Lucky Mica pegmatite body or dyke yielded grades as high as 7.5% Li20 from a spodumene-rich grab sample.

Other highlights from the report are as follows:

• Ten new pegmatite outcrops have now been identified throughout the property, possibly indicating up to seven distinct pegmatite bodies.
• An independent sampling program conducted by SGS confirms the presence of lithium mineralization in these pegmatite outcrops and supports further work to target these bodies for potentially economic zones of lithium mineralization.

The technical report was prepared with the help of SGS Canada and Paiement, who visited the property in January, 2017.and SGS Canada Inc.

Redzone said an independent sampling program conducted by SGS confirms the presence of lithium mineralization in the pegmatite bodies and supports the targeting of these bodies for potentially economic zones of lithium mineralization, the company said.

Currently, no mineral resource or mineral reserves have been estimated on the property to date.

RedZone recently said its exploration drilling permit for the Lucky Mica Dyke at its Fortner Boyd lithium property in Arizona has been submitted. The approval prospect is not expected to be a lengthy one, the company said.