Voltaic (ASX:VSR) chief leads with pure grit

The former Metso Out­otec executive and his team have not missed a single opportunity to pack in the fieldwork necessary to generate drill targets at their Ti Tree lithium and Paddys Well rare earth projects – a task completed in the peak of the Gascoyne region’s inhos­pitable summer climate.

“Voltaic’s October listing meant we had to be highly conscious of rain and poten­tial flooding events that could cut off access to our tene­ments at the riskiest time of the year, which would have severely limited our ability to generate news flow in those critical early months,” Walshe reasons.

Life for this softly-spoken but highly resilient Irish family man and the other team members has only just this month returned to normal.

Voltaic Strategic Resources exploration team members include German field assistants Marcella Moyano-Norda & Cennet Baser Chilean born, but Australian-bred exploration manager Claudio Sheriff and Ecuadorian exploration geologist Alba Andrade Villafuerte and Ruby the rescue Joey.

For the past six months, most days have started with a sleeping bag at 4.30 am to get in a quick bush brekky and a cuppa to allow fieldwork to begin the precious cooler hour of the day.

And the work was hard, blowing off sticky flies while lugging interesting sample rocks up and over kilometres of challenging topography fraught with sharp rocks hidden beneath fierce spinifex scrub.

“We had to start early to get in a decent day’s work in,” Walshe explains.

“In the middle of summer, the Gascoyne can get close to 50 degrees centigrade, which can make even sitting in the shade unbearable.”

This usually meant an escape to vehicle air-conditioning to do paperwork before heading out for more rock collecting in the cooler later afternoon until it got dark.

And if that doesn’t sound ex­hausting enough, the long days often dragged well into the night with the daily tasks of running an exploration company back at camp.

But Walshe says it has all been worth it with the compa­ny holding two independent and equally compelling sto­ries – one on lithium and the other on rare earth.

At Ti Tree, rocks containing similar composition and chemistry to its neighbour Red Dirt Metals’ recent $25 million Yinnietharra lithium project ac­quisition (currently undertaking a 90,000m drill program) provide highly encouraging signs at an early stage of exploration.

Meanwhile, hopes are running high on REE poten­tial at Paddys Well.

“The preliminary results from our maiden drill program (assays pending) indicate that we may have some of the largest continuous mineralised REE clay intercepts in Australia and we will soon embark on sighter metallur­gical testwork to determine leach characteristics,” Walsh says.

“Surface soil surveys have defined a continuous 6km x 2km anomalous area, with over 1000 square kilometres of tenement area still to be tested,” he adds.

“We also have primary hard rock rare earth potential similar to the nearby Hastings Technology Metals and Dreadnought rare earth deposits, which gives the com­pany two equally compelling REE stories from a single project.”

Voltaic plans to commence its maiden drill program at Ti Tree in May, followed by the second phase of drilling at Paddy Well early in Q3.

Knowledge Sharing

The long days and nights came with additional silver lining for Walshe, who has extensive experience in lithium and rare earth processing, allowing countless hours of conversation with Claudio Sherriff – a leading authority on rare earth exploration and geology.

Voltaic Strategic Resources CEO Michael Walshe and his Exploration Manager Claudio Sheriff

The pair’s collaboration has been a valuable exchange of knowledge and skills and is something that sets Voltaic apart from many of its peers. Claudio has been involved with REE exploration since he was part of the Northern Minerals Browns Range heavy REE discovery in 2009.