Fleet Space announces exploration contract with Core Lithium

Fleet Space Technologies recently announced a major new contract with Core Lithium. The 12-month agreement, signed by Fleet Space co-founder and CEO Flavia Tata Nardini and Core Lithium CEO Gareth Manderson, comes into effect in May 2023. It will see Fleet’s satellite-based mineral exploration system, ExoSphere, deployed across Core’s tenements in the Northern Territory.

Core Lithium was also successful in applying for the co-funding of a tenement-wide deployment of Exosphere at its Shoobridge Project in 2022, under round 15 of the Geophysics and Drilling Collaborations program.

This follows successful results of a collaborative trial between Core Lithium and Fleet Space Technologies at the BP33 prospect. In August 2022 the companies jointly announced the successful conclusion of survey trials. In a statement to the ASX (1 August 2022), Core Lithium described the results of the trial as “an outstanding success”, noting an “excellent correlation with the pegmatite body interpreted from drilling to depths in excess of 500 m” and stating that “a number of previously unknown targets have emerged — a major boost for exploration”.

Core is using ExoSphere to accelerate its lithium exploration activities, in line with its vision to provide high-grade lithium for electric vehicle (EV) and renewable energy storage applications worldwide.

“Core is one of the first companies to embrace Fleet’s ExoSphere technology, and the first to use it successfully in lithium exploration,” said Andy Bennett, Exploration Manager, Core Lithium. “Core sees huge potential for ExoSphere to provide robust new targets, and focus drilling into the most prospective areas. Core considers that ExoSphere is an innovative new approach to exploration and looks forward to continuing a successful partnership with Fleet Space.”

Developed by Fleet Space at its headquarters in Adelaide, ExoSphere is an exploration system that delivers detailed, 3D subsurface images in days rather than the months required using conventional techniques. An array of satellite-enabled geophones, called Geodes, uses edge computing to analyse ambient seismic noise collected by ambient noise tomography (ANT). Geodes are up to 10 times more sensitive than existing nodal geophones, increasing both accuracy and depth of results. This data is then rapidly processed and transmitted through Fleet’s low-power satellite network.

According to Fleet Space, what ExoSphere can do for Core Lithium by enabling direct detection of pegmatites is to increase the probability of success in drilling, resulting in less drilling, less cost, less time to discovery and less environmental disturbance.

The contract includes the Geodes, planning and deployment support, and real-time processing and delivery of 3D shear velocity models for one year.

Image: ExoSphere by Fleet