One ASX lithium stock is catching the eye with a very strong gain on Friday.
In early trade, the Delta Lithium Ltd (ASX: DLI) share price is up a whopping 37% to 31.5 cents.
This is despite the rest of the lithium industry looking like a sea of red at the time of writing.
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Why is this ASX lithium stock rocketing?
Investors have been scrambling to buy Delta Lithium's shares today thanks to a golden announcement.
According to the release, the lithium explorer could be sitting atop a very lucrative gold deposit.
This follows Delta Lithium's recent exploration activities at its 100% owned Mt Ida Project, which is a shovel ready lithium and gold project in the Eastern Goldfields Province of Western Australia.
The release reveals that its recent mineral resource estimate has significantly increased the contained gold at Mt Ida, demonstrating the presence of a large gold system.
Pleasingly, all mineral resources at the Mt Ida Project are located on granted mining leases. This would allow the company to start mining immediately if studies support this outcome.
The upgrade represents an 82% increase in contained gold for the Baldock Deposit to 4.8Mt @ 4.4g/t gold for 674,000 ounces. In addition, the maiden mineral resource estimate for the Golden Vale Prospect is 27,000 ounces @ 1.7g/t Au.
Overall, the ASX lithium stock revealed that the mineral resource estimate for gold at Mt Ida (inferred and indicated) is now 6.6Mt @ 3.5 g/t Au for 752,000 ounces.
As a reminder, the current spot gold price is US$2,338.3 an ounce. This means it has potentially discovered a very valuable deposit.
'A wonderful result'
The ASX lithium stock's managing director, James Croser, was very pleased with the news. He said:
This is a wonderful result for Delta shareholders, reaffirming our long-held belief that the gold system at Mt Ida has significant scale and upside. The Baldock is fast becoming one of very few, large high-grade undeveloped gold deposits in WA in excess of 500koz. The commencement of open pit mining has been approved, and the underground approval with the Department is submitted and pending.
We are investigating the best options for Delta shareholders to crystalise value from our gold, which can then be applied to further developing our core lithium business. The efforts of Delta's Geology team have been tireless and driven toward this success. We have already started follow up gold drilling at Mt Ida to target resource growth beyond 1Moz.
