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Zigzag (Li, Ta, Rb) Lithium & Critical Metal Exploration Project

Kerrs Gold Project | Ontario (Au) Gold Exploration Asset

Esa Project | (Au) Gold Exploration in Ontario Canada

Sunbeam (Au) Gold Exploration & Mining Project

North Hemlo (Au, Ni, Mo, Cu) Gold & Metal Exploration & Mining

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Poppins

Taking on a prospective exploration project is always exciting.
 
But it’s even more exciting when the mineral it’s prospective for is experiencing a structural bull market and has just been ear-marked for a wave of government support.
 
Excitingly, this is exactly the set of circumstances we’ve found ourselves in this week.
 
As announced on Monday, we’ve entered an exclusivity agreement for a new lithium project in northwest Ontario, Canada.
 
Precise details are covered by an NDA for now. But what we can say at this time is the property certainly looks interesting.
 
For one thing, it lies fewer than 100km away from the proven lithium district of Armstrong. This is the area where Green Technology Metals is sitting on a 10 million tonne resource of lithium-enriched rock at its flagship Seymour project.
 
With the explorer already enjoying support from Sandstorm Gold and Lithium Americas, it bodes well for any future regional discoveries…
 
For another, lithium mineralisation has been identified across an entire 600m structure on the claim block we’re examining.
 
Grades have even reached up to 1.68% lithium dioxide over 7.9m from surface samples. Meanwhile, several shallow historic drill holes have returned up to 1.08% lithium dioxide over 6.1m.
 
From a geological perspective, all this would be pretty exciting in any macro climate.
 
But we feel the timing of this deal is what really takes it to the next level. It’s also perhaps why we were able to raise £300,000 this week from a single high net worth battery metal investor at a 4% premium to our 5 VWAP day mid closing price from the previous week.
 
There are two factors here…
 
First of all, lithium has been on a tear, with prices of its carbonate form more than doubling to CNY568,500/t (US$81,477.34) since the start of January.

Even more importantly, there’s a lot of weight behind the argument that this trend will continue years into the future.
 
It all comes down to electric vehicles, or “EVs”. More specifically, the lithium-ion batteries that power many of them.
 
As the name would suggest, these cells contain large amounts of refined lithium. And with analysts estimating that the ongoing electrification trend will lead the size of the global EV market to rise from US$178.5 billion in 2021 to around US$1,108 billion by 2030…
 
The amount of lithium required globally is also expected to rise considerably.
 
In fact, according to Statista, the world will require 2.1 million metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent by 2030 from 559,000 metric tons today.
 
Great. But what really shines a light on lithium for the speculators are growing concerns that supplies of lithium will fall significantly short of this demand.
 
In fact, thanks to a long period of bear market underinvestment, supply is expected to come in at 24% less than demand by 2035­.
 
You don’t need to be an economics professor to recognise that this could provide a strong backdrop for prices.
 
If we were to make a lithium discovery, then, we could benefit from a likely rush to secure new pipeline supplies at an attractive valuation among major miners looking to fill the gap.
 
Talking of discoveries, the second reason the timing of our exclusivity agreement is so strong could help us considerably on our way to unearthing economic mineralisation.
 
Just last week, Canada became the latest nation to release its Critical Minerals strategy.
 
With the support of nearly CAD$4 billion in federal funding, its goal is to support the value chain for 31 different minerals that underpin future technologies all the way from exploration to recycling (and in turn the Canadian economy).
 
Most importantly, lithium is not only included on this mineral list…
 
But it has been designated as one of six “prioritized” minerals to receive a new 30% tax credit to support specified exploration expenditures incurred in Canada.
 
It’s early doors, of course, when it comes to how firms will actually benefit from the strategy.
 
But it’s certainly no bad thing that lithium’s importance has now been officially designated in Canada as it already has been in jurisdictions like the EU, the USA, Australia, and the UK.
 
We echo the words of Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson, who said upon releasing the strategy…
 
“Critical minerals present a generational opportunity for Canada in many areas: exploration, extraction, processing, downstream product manufacturing and recycling.”
 
Especially with our wider Ontario exploration portfolio being prospective for several of the other minerals highlighted in the strategy.
 
All-in-all, this week’s agreement may have just been announced, but it’s our belief that it could hold great significance both for our investors and Canada as a whole.
 
Keep an eye out over coming weeks to learn more–we’ll provide details when we can.

Why this is the perfect time to move into lithium