A business partner of Chariot Corporation (ASX: CC9) has launched a 15-day geological mapping survey on-site at the company's Iganna Project, a prospective hard-rock lithium project located in Nigeria.

The mapping work is being carried out by ZhongNuo, a Hong Kong-based entity that, together with a third party, C&C Minerals, signed a term sheet last month to jointly advance the project.

ZhongNuo will conduct geomapping over the entire 23.8sq.km Iganna licence area at its own cost. The program will be followed by a second 15-day campaign at Chariot's separate Fonlo project area. Like Iganna, Fonlo is a hard-rock lithium project in southwest Nigeria, and both prospective landholdings sit within Nigeria's Oyo state.

Southwest Nigeria forms part of a broader pegmatite-bearing province that has drawn increasing exploration interest, with Nigeria's government having designated solid minerals development as a policy priority as it seeks to diversify the economy beyond oil and gas. Hard-rock lithium exploration typically progresses through staged work — surface mapping and sampling, followed by drilling — before any resource definition can begin.

Underpinning investor interest in the two projects is the fact that lithium prices have risen more than 100% over the past year, rebounding from a multi-year slump that followed the peaks of the 2021-2023 lithium rally.

ZhongNuo's geomapping at Iganna will be used to begin the initial process of locating high-priority targets on-site — ideally those presenting with anomalous lithium indications — through a combination of tracing pegmatites at surface and conducting grab assays.

C&C Minerals, the third party to the term sheet, will join ZhongNuo's fieldworkers on-site.

Once mapping at both Iganna and Fonlo is complete, the three parties will select one of Chariot's three projects in the region — the other being Saki — on which to focus. Should ZhongNuo proceed, it will also fund a 1,500m diamond drill program at its selected target area of interest, per the term sheet disclosed last month. That arrangement — partner-funded exploration at no cost to Chariot — reduces the company's upfront funding burden during early-stage target generation.

Chariot Corp's shares have climbed more than 60% in the last month.

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