Usha Resources closes financing, identifies drill targets at White Willow, Ontario
Usha Resources Ltd. [TSXV-USHA], subject to the final approval of the TSX Venture Exchange, has closed a non-brokered private placement of $595,000 through the issuance of 5.95 million units at 10 cents per unit.
No finder’s fees were paid in connection with the private placement. Each unit consists of one common share of the company and one transferable common share purchase warrant exercisable at 20 cents per share for two years from the closing date of the private placement. The company intends to use the net proceeds from the private placement for exploration activities on the company’s properties in Nevada and Ontario and for general working capital.
“Having a fortified balance sheet is critical to the success of every company. With over $1.7-million in working capital, USHA is in a position to accelerate our planned drill programs at Jackpot Lake and White Willow,” said Deepak Varshney, CEO. “With work also proceeding on our secondary listing on the Australian Stock Exchange, we believe we have some very significant catalysts coming over the coming months and look forward to providing updates as we progress towards these milestones.”
Fieldwork at its White Willow lithium pegmatite project, located 170 km west of Thunder Bay, Ontario, successfully identified additional drill targets at the Bingo lithium-cesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatite swarms, with the primary dike swarm expanded to potentially over 1.8 km in strike length.
The combination of highly evolved geochemical indicators (niobium/tantalum, potassium/rubidium ratios; Ta, Rb, Cs, Li abundances), prospective mineralogy (including white beryl and Nb-Ta oxides) as well as field textures (replacement textures, strong planar fabric) indicate a fluid-rich and highly fractionated dike swarm that has a strong potential to be spodumene-bearing.
The company now intends to continue beyond the planned six weeks of fieldwork for phase 3 to further maximize the mapping, sampling and prospecting that can be completed prior to initiating drilling.
Assay highlights to date include: Lithium oxide (Li2O) values up to 0.5%, with 76 samples containing very anomalous (greater than 300 parts per million) concentrations of lithium, including 14 above greater than 1,000 ppm with a sample of the host rock which assayed 1,300 ppm, indicating significant lithium-rich fluids are present within the system.
Cesium (Cs) values up to 1,730 ppm, with 71 samples containing very anomalous (greater than 100 ppm) concentrations, including 10 which are greater than 500 ppm, indicating the samples are being collected from the outer zone of a fertile LCT system, which is where spodumene, if present, will be identified.
Tantalum (Ta) values up to 120,000 ppm Ta, with 82 samples containing very anomalous (greater than 30 ppm) concentrations, including 35 which are greater than 60 ppm, indicative of the presence of a spodumene-bearing pegmatite.
Of note, a high-grade showing of 14.64% Ta2O5 (tantalum pentoxide) is present at the Maple Leaf dike; coarse-grained tantalite is only known to be found at one other locality in Ontario which is the North Aubrey pegmatite at Green Technology Metals’ (GT1) Seymour Lake project where GT1 has identified a 9.9-million-tonne resource at 1.04% Li2O.
Rubidium values of up to 3,540 ppm, with 94 samples containing very anomalous (greater than 1,000 ppm) concentrations, including 24 greater than 2,000 ppm.
Geochemical assessment also indicates the strong potential for spodumene-bearing dikes to be present at the property. Per Selway et al., potassium/rubidium ratios (K/Rb) are a key tool in identifying these types of dikes; K/Rb ratios of less than 30 are indicative of rare-earth pegmatites and less than 20 of spodumene-subtype pegmatites. To date, 10 pegmatites have been identified with K/Rb ratios less than 30 with a low of 7.5. Values below 10 are often associated with economic spodumene pegmatites.
Based in Vancouver, B.C., Usha’s portfolio of properties provides target-rich diversification and includes Jackpot Lake, a lithium brine project in Nevada, and White Willow, a lithium pegmatite project in Ontario that is the flagship among its growing portfolio of hard-rock lithium assets.