JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Australian junior Hannans Reward is encouraged about prospects for technology metals in Scandinavia, particularly about opportunities that may emerge in Sweden, where it intends to explore for lithium.
The company on Wednesday announced that it had lodged seven applications for exploration permits over an historic mine and tenure prospective for pegmatite-hosted lithium mineralisation in the Skellefteå-Boliden district.
The first exploration permit application covers Sweden’s most well-known lithium occurrence, the Varuträsk pegmatite, which was mined between 1936 and 1946 through opencut and underground mining. The site is known to host lithium and cesium minerals and also has occurrences of niobium minerals.
Drilling by Swedish Geological in the 1980s identified a new pegmatite lens, north of the previously mined pegmatite. Hannans stated that the full potential of the original pegmatite and the additional lens had not been determined and, as such, it believed Varuträsk warranted further exploration.
Hannans announced in July 2015 that it had started a review of lithium, cobalt and graphite opportunities in Scandinavia. The company reported that the review had indicated that Sweden was optimally positioned to benefit from the surge in demand for technology metals, owing to its proximity to the European market for high-technology devices, and universities conducting research and development into lithium-ion batteries, among other reasons.