Overview
With a total land package of over 3,000 square kilometres surrounded by some of the most promising projects and most significant lithium discoveries in Western Australia’s prolific Gascoyne Region, Odessa Minerals (ASX:ODE) is uniquely positioned to leverage a quickly emerging battery metals market to drive its fully funded lithium and rare earths exploration strategy.
Battery metals such as lithium and rare earths are the foundation of the world’s transition to a more sustainable future. This is why Australia is one of several leading countries that have identified these minerals as critical.
It’s also why Western Australia’s Gascoyne region is currently in the midst of a proverbial gold rush. Previously both under-explored and overlooked, the Gascoyne is now the target of several of the largest mining and exploration companies in the region, including Delta Lithium (ASX:DLI), Voltair Strategic Resources (ASX:VSR), Minerals 260 (ASX:MI6) and Reach Resources (ASX:RR1). There is every indication that as demand for lithium and battery metals continues to grow, activity in the region will increase even further.
Odessa Minerals’ projects in the Gascoyne Region of Western Australia totalling >3,000km2
In the middle of these mining industry titans, Odessa’s investment value proposition is noteworthy for a few reasons. Firstly, it’s trading at a market cap significantly lower than the companies that surround it. The company is still at the beginning of its journey, making it an ideal investment alternative for consideration for anyone looking to get involved with lithium and the significant potential of the Gascoyne region.
In addition to being fully funded in all objectives this year, Odessa is managed by a highly invested management team that believes in the company’s full potential and strategy for success.
Company Highlights
Driven by lithium demand, Western Australia’s Gascoyne region — previously under-explored — has become a hot zone of mining exploration and development.Some of the region’s largest and most successful mining companies have already staked their claims there, including Delta Lithium and Dreadnought Resources. Odessa is an exploration company still at the beginning of its development journey, with a low market cap and strong leadership.Odessa’s land package comprises one of the largest land holdings in the Gascoyne region, with some 3,000 square kilometres of claims divided into three distinct projects, all highly prospective and incredibly promising, located in close proximity and displaying similar geology to several recent lithium pegmatite discoveries in the region.Odessa’s leadership team are all highly invested in the company. All planned exploration and development work is well-funded for the year. Over 56,000 metres strike-length of pegmatites have now been mapped by geology crews on Odessa’s Yinnetharra Lockier Range tenementPegmatites at over 30 metres in width are already mapped
Key Lithium and REE Projects
Yinnetharra – Lockier Range Project
Lockier Range Project is proximal to the emergent Gascoyne lithium pegmatite province
Located in Western Australia’s highly sought-after Gascoyne region, the Lockier Range Project consists of a single highly prospective exploration licence that spans 125 square kilometres within Odessa’s 3,000-square-kilometre Gascoyne package. The project is in close proximity to multiple significant lithium/pegmatite discoveries by Delta Lithium (ASX:DLI), Reach Resources (ASX:RR1) and Voltair Strategic Resources (ASX:VSR). In addition it is also situated in a north-south corridor of rare earth elements (REE) carbonatite discoveries by Kingfisher Mining (ASX:KFM), Dreadnought Resources (ASX:DRE) and Hastings Technologies (ASX:HAS).
Odessa recently released an interim update on its ongoing exploration program, noting that onsite geology crews have mapped over 56,000 metres of strike-length pegmatites to date and some pegmatites seen at over 30 metres in width. Having just completed 16,500 metres of strike-length pegmatite mapping at its Eastern Pegmatite Field Target and 10,400 metres strike-length of previously undiscovered pegmatites mapped at the new Central Pegmatite Field and Mt Yaragner, the team continues to map over 30,000 metres of strike-length pegmatites at its Southern Pegmatite Field target.
Following completion of the mapping programme, Odessa plans to target and identify LCT drilling targets and obtain approvals to drill.
Project Highlights:
Exploration Work to Date: The company has already done extensive exploration work on its Lockier Range Project, identifying significant pegmatite fields and associated lithium anomalism and lithium-pathfinder elements in the process. Highlights include:1,900 soil samples collected, pending results from laboratory187 rock samples collected, pending results from laboratory Very high tenor REE in stream sediments and soils Extensive and promising thorium anomalies with high thorium radiometrics signatures Historical REE grades up to:14 percent total rare earth elements (TREE) in stream sediment sample 3.36 percent neodymium+praseodymium in stream sediment sample3.8 percent TREE in soil samples Rock chip sampling returned seven samples with over 1,000 parts per million (ppm) total rare earths oxide (TREO) and containing between 14 percent and 26 percent of critical rare earth oxides (CREO). Stream sediment sampling returned highly anomalous results including a maximum of 821 ppm TREO at 29.1 percent CREO. Ideally Located: Lockier Range is located in close proximity to and shares multiple geological characteristics with the following projects: Adjacent to Minerals 260’s Aston lithium project ~ 8.5 kilometres southwest of Delta Lithium’s Jameson lithium pegmatite discovery~ 15 kilometres southwest of Reach Resources’ Morrissey Hill lithium pegmatite discovery~ 25 kilometres west of Delta Lithium’s Yinnetharra lithium pegmatite discovery~ 40 kilometres west of Voltaic Strategic Resources’ pegmatite discovery~ 70 kilometres south of Hastings Technologies’ and Dreadnought Resources’ rare earth projects
Lyndon Lithium and REE Project
Covering 811 square kilometres of highly prospective ground for rare earth and lithium exploration, Lyndon is situated immediately to the west of Dreadnought Resources’ Yin Project. Odessa has defined seven thorium anomalies prospective for rare earth mineralisation via airborne physical data.
Gascoyne East Lithium and REE Project
Odessa’s Gascoyne East project area spans 2,108 square kilometres of exploration licences. Situated at the intersection of multiple regional fault structures, the area is believed to be underlain by the Gascoyne and Glenburg meta-granitoids with a northern on-lap of Edmund Basin. Because roughly 90 percent of the region is covered by alluvial sediments, it has not been the target of detailed exploration in the past.
It is considered to be prospective for REE, lithium-bearing pegmatites, gold, copper and graphite. In order to map the bedrock between transported cover sediments, Odessa has submitted for permitting of 113 aircore holes on existing tracks. It is also scoping a combined detailed airborne gravity and magnetic survey.
Management Team
David Lenigas — Executive Director
David Lenigas is a mining engineer with a Western Australian First Class Mine Managers Certificate. He has extensive corporate experience serving at the chairman and chief executive officer level on many of the world’s leading stock exchanges, where he oversaw multiple business sectors.
Lenigas has held senior financial and management positions in both publicly listed and private enterprises in Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and Africa.
Darren Holden – Consulting Geologist
Dr Darren Holden is a geologist with 28 years of industry experience in mineral exploration and exploration technologies. He specialises in regional to local scale targeting using the integration of geology, geophysics and geochemistry.
He is currently a director of Augustus Minerals (ASX:AUG), Aurumin (ASX:AUN) and chair of OD6 Metals (ASX:OD6), as well as several private companies.
Holden has a BSc (Hons) First Class (geology) from The University of Western Australia and a PhD (history) from The University of Notre Dame Australia. Holden is a fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (FAusIMM) and a member of the Geological Society of Australia.
Zane Lewis — Non-executive Chairman
Zane Lewis is principal and joint founder of corporate advisory firm SmallCap Corporate, which specialises in corporate advice and compliance administration to public companies. He provides the board with a wealth of knowledge obtained from his diverse financial and corporate experience in previous appointments.
Lewis is also a fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia and a non-executive director of Lion Energy (ASX:LIO) and Kairos Minerals (ASX:KAI).
Lisa Wells — Non-executive Director
Lisa Wells has 26 years of experience as an exploration geologist working across various commodities including diamonds, bulk commodities, gold and base metals. She was a senior geologist at United Kimberley Diamonds, where the Phillips Range diamond bulk sampling program at Aries South in the Central Kimberley was undertaken.
Wells has significant experience with environmental and permitting approvals, as well as on-ground coordination of trial mining operations, feasibility studies and project management in a range of commodities including diamonds, gold, phosphate and base metals.
Wells is currently a non-executive director of Territory Minerals, a gold company with projects in North Queensland. She holds a BAppSc. (geology) from Curtin University.
Robbie Featherby — Company Secretary
Robert Featherby is a corporate advisor at SmallCap Corporate, a boutique corporate advisory firm specialising in providing company secretarial, CFO and transaction management services involving both listed and unlisted companies. He is also the company secretary of Victory Goldfields (ASX:1VG), Cosmos Exploration (ASX:C1X) and Volt Resources (ASX:VRC).