North Arrow lays claim on NC’s lithium

With the brines of South America and the pegmatites of Quebec grabbing most of the lithium mining attention these days, the world’s former number one producing area can be forgiven for feeling a bit unloved.

North Carolina’s tin-spodumene belt held the title as the world’s most important lithium-producing district before the lower-cost brines of South America came online in the 1990s.

As a testament to the region’s former prominence, two of the world’s top three lithium producers, Chemetall — now a division of Rockwood Holdings (ROC-N) — and FMC (FMC-N), still have milling operations along the belt.

Despite such a rich history, and the recent market enthusiasm for lithium, the area has gone largely unexplored since mining stopped, leaving North Arrow Minerals (NAR-V) to poke around all on its lonesome.

“The fact that those mines produced lithium in the 1950s and ’60s and into the 1990s, meant it had to be big enough to produce for that long,” Ken Armstrong, a geologist and a director on North Arrow’s board, says. “And the ore is still there. That’s what drew our attention to working there.”

North Arrow’s Beaverdam project sits 44 km northwest of the state capital, Charlotte, but perhaps more telling is that it’s 5 km from FMC’s still producing lithium plant.

Currently, however, FMC is producing lithium end-products from brines in Argentina. What North Arrow is hoping for is that a surge in demand for lithium, brought on by a rise in electric cars, will have FMC looking for more sources in the near future, and with Beaverdam, it won’t have to look very far.

Of course, processing lithium sourced from a salt flat as compared to lithium sourced from a hard-rock pegmatite deposit is a different process.

But Armstrong explains that the difference is mainly at the front end of the process, where unlike brine material, the pegmatite has to go through a crushing cycle. FMC had the capacity to do just that in the 1990s, but whether or not it still has the equipment is anyone’s guess. The company is notoriously tight-lipped about its lithium extraction processes.

If FMC, or Chemetall, which also still has an operating lithium facility, do grow an appetite for pegmatites, North Carolina should have little problem supplying the tonnage.

The historically producing belt extends over a 60-km length and reaches a maximum width of 1.6 km. But despite such vastness, North Arrow only controls a relatively small area of 1.6 sq. km.

Part of the reason for the rather modest amount of claims is that acquiring surface rights in North Carolina has to be done the old-fashioned way.

“It was a matter of knocking on doors, and explaining what we want to do,” Armstrong says. “But in some ways it’s easier than in Canada because of all the work FMC and Chemetall have done in the area. We could knock on doors and talk about lithium and they wouldn’t look at us like we have two heads.”

Compared with pegmatite deposits in Quebec, however, Beaverdam is returning thinner intersections.

In fall 2009, the company’s 12- hole, 1,235-metre drill program had 10 holes intersecting spodumene pegmatite (which contains roughly 6% lithium) over intervals ranging from 4.1 metres to 13.2 metres.

Assays returned a highlight intercept of 1.24% lithium over 13 metres — that’s a far cry from the widths in Quebec where it is not uncommon to find similar and even slightly higher grades over as much as 80 metres to 100 metres.

But with geophysical testing outlining a possible strike length of 1.5 km, the company is hopeful that some of the dykes along that length will meet up at depths and provide greater widths.

That was just the kind of geological setting of FMC’s Hallman- Beam mine and Chemetall’s King’s Mountain mine, both of which lie to the south of Beaverdam.

The two historic mines took the bulk of their respective tonnages from zones that were downdip of the outcrops by over 200 metres.

So far, however, North Arrow has only managed to sink one hole that deep with the rest stopping between the 100-and 150-metre level.

Armstrong anticipates that the next phase of drilling will focus on testing to the 250-metre level. He says the company is considering a 5,000-to 10,000-metre drill program but that another round of financing will likely have to be done before the program starts.

And while Armstrong would love for drilling to hit thicker intercepts at depth, there are, he says, project-specific value add-ons regardless.

“It comes back to location,” he says. “With such exceptional infrastructure, support from the community and being so close to downstream production facilities, the hurdle we need to reach may not be quite as high as it is for projects in other parts of the world.”