Patriot ready to put North American lithium exploration in the fast lane as new MD enters the fray

Patriot Lithium’s high-flying new managing director and CEO is on board as the North American focused explorer accelerates exploration across ten prospective battery metals projects in Canada and the United States.

The new boss is Nicholas Vickery, previously one of the key figures in the development of the Mt Holland lithium mine in WA as the general manager of legal for Wesfarmers’ and SQM’s Covalent Lithium joint venture.

Coinciding with the introduction to the top role of Vickery, Patriot (ASX:PAT) has consolidated its impressive holdings in the US by picking up 1169km2 of ground in North Western Ontario in Canada.

Four of those have been acquired since the appointment of Mr Vickery, complementing Patriot’s impressive collection of US pegmatite projects, which are some of the most prospective hard rock lithium assets in any listed company operating in the United States.

Keystone and Tinton West are located in the Black Hills region of South Dakota and Wyoming and are famous for hosting spodumene grades of up to 6% Li2O with the region known for hosting some of the largest spodumene crystals in the world.

At Wickenburg three pegmatites with potential for spodumene mineralisation have already been mapped at the Dove prospect.

It lays the groundwork for a fast start to exploration with Mr Vickery now in the hot seat.

“It is exciting to join such an experienced and motivated team and I’m appreciative of the work that has been undertaken to date, in building the exploration portfolio and appointing such an experienced technical team in North America,” Nicholas said.

“Early exploration activities are underway at Wickenburg in the Arizona Pegmatite Belt and will be commencing shortly in the Black Hills, of South Dakota and Wyoming.

“The proactive work of the team now means that Patriot has a significant holding of highly prospective tenure in a number of burgeoning lithium jurisdictions and is well placed as it continues its initial exploration program.

“The early exploration success that the team has experienced at Wickenburg is a brilliant start and the maiden drilling program, which is currently in planning, is eagerly anticipated by the whole team.”

Boots on the ground in Ontario

When it comes to Canada, Patriot has appointed Phil Smerchanski to lead exploration across its seven pronged portfolio.

Smerchanski has a bevy of experience in the Canadian exploration industry, most recently as VP exploration and technical services at Canadian explorer Pure Gold Mining.

It adds to the exploration expertise Patriot has brought on board in recent months, on top of the corporate and project development experience of Mr Vickery and former Tianqi Australia boss, PAT chairman Phil Thick.

“The Patriot team have been looking forward to having Nick commence in his role as Managing Director and CEO and hit the ground running. We have assembled a significant project portfolio that offers excellent optionality in geological settings that are considered highly prospective for hard rock lithium,” Thick said.

“We have made great progress over the past month with significant growth in our highly prospective lithium landholdings, building the exploration team and now look forward to executing exploration activities on the ground.”

Patriot’s western Ontario lithium projects include the Gorman project, boasting some 320km2 along strike from Frontier Lithium’s top-tier PAK project, and the 145km2 Forester project where previous drilling has identified pegmatite swarms at the nearby Musselwhite gold mine.

It also holds the 342km2 Sydney project, containing mapped pegmatites and garnet bearing two-mica granite 44km northeast of the Tanco LCT mine, the world’s largest producing caesium mine with 50 years of operating history and one of Canada’s only domestic sources of lithium.

This article was developed in collaboration with Patriot Lithium, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

The post Patriot ready to put North American lithium exploration in the fast lane as new MD enters the fray appeared first on Stockhead.

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