The Henderson Gold Lithium Nickel Project consists of five exploration licenses covering an area of approximately 800 km2 in the Mt Ida/Ularring Greenstone Belt, located 50km northwest of Menzies in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. These licenses are E29/519, E30/520, E29/1112 (100% Venus).
VMC's E30/520 tenement covers about 25 km of the Mt Ida/Ularring Greenstone Belt, historically known for its gold and nickel potential and recently recognized as an emerging Lithium Province.
Two regionally significant fault zones, the Ida Fault and Ballard Fault, transect the project area (Figure 1) and are considered to have played important controls on gold deposition. Significant gold mines associated with those structures in proximity to the Henderson Project include the historical First Hit Mine (Viking Mines; 7km south), the Riverina Mine (Ora Banda Mining; 15km south), and the historical Bottle Creek Mine (30km north). Historical gold workings within the general project area include the Hilltop Mine and Emerald Mine (excised from VMC tenement).
Delta Lithium Mt Ida project hosts a gold resource of 752koz @ 3.5g/t Au (refer to Delta Lithium ASX announcement 29 July 2024). Delta Lithium Ltd (ASX: DLI) has identified a substantial pegmatite-hosted lithium deposit at Mt Ida, located directly north of and abutting VMC tenement E30/520The deposit currently stands at 14.6mt @ 1.2% Li2O (refer to ASX release for Delta Lithium Ltd dated 14 February 2024). Delta Lithium is Chaired by Mineral Resources Ltd (ASX: MIN) founder Mr Chris Ellison.
Until recently, major lithium producer IGO Ltd, through a subsidiary, had fully funded a joint venture expenditure for this project. The subsidiary carried out extensive surface sampling, including 3,678 soil samples, seven rock chip samples, and geological mapping. They spent $866,356 by 31 May 2024 under the Farm-in and JV agreement (refer to ASX release on 2 May 2023). The focus of the exploration was primarily on identifying target areas for Lithium. However, IGO Ltd has decided to withdraw from the JV agreement due to changing priorities within IGO Ltd.
VMC has commenced reviewing the Henderson tenements data, which encompasses surface data from IGO and drilling data from VMC. Additional work is scheduled to follow.
Figure 1 Henderson Project Tenements on GSWA 250k Geology Map.
Figure 2 Henderson Project Tenements over the aeromagnetic image.