Cullinan Metals options Smiley Li property in Ont.

Nov 1, 2022

2022-10-31 16:14 ET – News Release

Mr. Marc Enright-Morin reports

CULLINAN METALS OPTIONS LITHIUM PROPERTY, THUNDER BAY, ON

Cullinan Metals Corp. has entered into an option agreement to acquire a 100-per-cent interest in the Smiley lithium property located 55 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont. The property consists of five mineral claims in one contiguous block covering approximately 1,902 hectares. Provincial Highway 527 transects the property with excellent secondary road access with Thunder Bay providing excellent rail and port facilities.

Commentary

Marc Enright-Morin, chief executive officer, states: “We are excited to be entering the lithium space in Northwestern Ontario where the exploration and advancement of several lithium deposits are occurring at a rapid pace. Northwestern Ontario is receiving a lot of attention for its lithium potential from companies around the world, providing a low-risk, mining-friendly jurisdiction with accessible infrastructure and government support. As the world gets closer to zero-carbon emission mandates, lithium remains a key mineral in the electric vehicle (EV) and battery mineral needs. We look forward to the results of our upcoming exploration efforts.”

Northwestern Ontario lithium

The Smiley lithium property is located in Northwestern Ontario, where several lithium deposits and occurrences are at different stages of exploration and development. Avalon Advanced Materials is preparing to install a dense media separation (DMS) plant at its Separation Rapids lithium deposit north of Kenora, Ont., and continues progress toward acquisition of an industrial site in Thunder Bay for a lithium battery minerals refinery (press release dated Aug. 17, 2022). Green Metals Technology announced a 24,000-metre drilling program at its Root lithium deposit aimed at resource definition and extensional and stepout drilling (press release dated Aug. 8, 2022) and baseline studies at its Seymour lithium deposit (press release dated July 19, 2022). GT1 also announced a strategic collaboration with Lithium Americas on GT1’s Canadian assets to build an integrated lithium chemicals business in North America (press release dated Sept. 20, 2022). Frontier Lithium is advancing its PAC and Spark lithium project in the Electric Avenue, where recent drilling results returned 326.6 m of 1.92 per cent Li2O (lithium oxide) (press release dated Oct. 11, 2022). Lithium deposits and occurrences are integrally related to subprovince boundaries in Northwestern Ontario.

The property

The Smiley lithium property has numerous indications of potential lithium-bearing pegmatites ((LCT pegmatites; lithium, cesium, tantalum) that make this property of high merit. These include:

Property is hosted within a muscovite-bearing S-type peraluminous granite in contact with metasediments. Peraluminous granites are fertile and associated with many lithium deposits in Northwestern Ontario and metasediments are common hosts to lithium-bearing pegmatites in the aureole of a fertile granite;
Straddles the subprovince boundary between the Marmion and Quetico subprovinces;
Ontario Geological Survey mapped muscovite-tourmaline granite pegmatites. Muscovite and tourmaline are good mineralogical indications of fertile parental granite fractionation of lithium-bearing pegmatites;
Fault and fracture systems conducive for pathways for granitic fractionating melts;
Drilling just southwest of the property by HTX Minerals in 2011 intersected several quartz-feldspar mica pegmatites up to 3.4 m downhole hosted within metasediments. At the time HTX was exploring for rift-related ultramafic mineralization. Drill logs describe greenish feldspar (this could be possible spodumene as spodumene can be greenish and have a feldspar-like crystal appearance), blue transparent angular crystals (possible beryl), coarse muscovite, and tourmaline or columbite-tantalite minerals (assessment file 20000009203). These are all good mineralogical indications of LCT pegmatites;
Analysis of one of two holes that intersected pegmatites returned elevated Cs (cesium) values up to 40.5 parts per million, Rb (rubidium) values up to 206 ppm and Ta (tantalum) values up to 16.8 ppm. Lithium or beryllium were not analyzed for. All the above elements are well elevated and anomalous beyond average crustal levels;
Elevated lithium lake sediment results conducted by the OGS on and proximal to the property.

The transaction

The company has the right to earn a 100-per-cent interest in the Smiley lithium property by paying the vendors $2,388,000 over a three-year period and issuing $175,000 worth of stock of Cullinan Metals. The vendors will retain a 2.5-per-cent net smelter returns royalty, of which the company can buy back 0.5 per cent of the NSR for $500,000.

Qualified person

Mike Kilbourne, PGeo, a qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release. Neither the QP nor the company has completed sufficient work to verify the historic information on the claims comprising the Smiley lithium property, particularly the historical exploration, neighbouring companies and government geological work.

About Cullinan Metals Corp.

Cullinan Metals is a Canadian mining and exploration company focused on the development of energy metals. Cullinan is focused on key energy resources such as the development of copper, graphite and lithium assets around the world.

We seek Safe Harbor.

https://www.cullinanmetals.com/