JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Exploration and development company Montero, which is putting mineralisation to the test in Namibia in search of a lithium resource, on Friday confirmed the presence of the soft silver-white metal in central Namibia.

“Our first channel sampling programme has confirmed lithium,” Montero CEO Dr Tony Harwood said in a release to Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly Online.

Demand for lithium, which is used in the rechargable batteries of electric vehicles, is forecast to rise as production of electric cars rises.

The lithium price has increased by more than 30% this year to a record $12 000/t.

   Spodumene has been identified as the major lithium-bearing mineral and Montero is testing the lithium content of the spodumene-bearing pegmatites in Namibia's Soris area, which is northwest of the town of Uis, in the Erongo region, and connected by dirt and asphalt road to the deep-water port of Walvis Bay.

The Toronto Venture Exchange company may at any time elect to acquire an 80% interest in the Soris Lithium Project by committing expenditure of C$1-million and completing a feasibility study within three years of transfer of the mining rights.

Assay results from holes drilled by prior operators, which are expected shortly, will assist Montero to understand the lithium potential.

These, as well as mineralogical test results designed to understand the metallurgy, will enable the company to decide whether to proceed with trying to define a lithium resource, Harwood said.

The initial channel sampling programme returned an average lithium grade of 0.76% lithium oxide (Li₂O) with values up to 3.66% Li₂O from all channel samples.

The best result from channel sampling, designed to test for lithium where prior operators mined for tantalum and tin, returned 14 m of 1.93% Li₂O.

Sampling was carried out at one metre intervals across the pegmatite, with 53 samples submitted for analysis to SGS Laboratories in Johannesburg.

Montero also has a rare earth elements project in Tanzania and a phosphates project in South Africa.