MinRes to put lithium mine on ice, to cut 300 jobs
The company will put its Bald Hill lithium mine in Western Australia under care and maintenance starting this week.
TNR Gold Corp. TSX.V – TNR has spun out its rare metal projects into its wholly owned International Lithium Corp TSX.V – ILC. The flagship project of International Lithium Corp is the Salar de Llullaillaco – the Mariana Project.
Infrastructure can make or break a project. Fortunately ILC’s Mariana Project is well situated with road access, a railroad nearby and deep sea port access readily available. The town of Tolar Grande is within 120 kilometres, providing needed labour and inventory for the operating camp.
Lithium makes an excellent battery for use in a wide range of applications – batteries using lithium have been found to have a high energy to weight ratio, can be moulded into amazing shapes and have longer lives than conventional batteries.
And when used as a rechargeable battery there is no memory effect.
There are significant savings to be had in the pricing of lithium from brines for lithium miners with quality projects close to all necessary infrastructure.
With the average market price of lithium carbonate trading at $5,500-6,000/tonne, SQM’s Atacama mine producing at under $2,000/tonne and with emerging developers such as Lithium America’s just releasing a projected production cost of under $1,500 per tonne, lithium extraction from brines in Argentina and Chile looks like a very lucrative business model.
Most of the world’s lithium comes from a small group of producers:
Talison is the only one of the four not producing from brine operations in South America.
Ahead of the Herd Special Report – Brine Mining
From a regional perspective, it is clear what the smart money is doing in regards to the lithium market.
Magna International, Frank Stronach, Toyota, and Mitsubishi are all familiar names who have invested into lithium projects in the area – the Olaroz salar, the Cauchari salar, Rio Grande and others.
End users such as Toyota and Mitsubishi are investing into these early stage projects and signing off-take agreements because of the security of supply issue.
Strategic Investor
“The involvement of a strategic investor from the outset has been the goal that we have diligently worked towards since first announcing the spin-out of ILC. The strategic investor offers significant support in our future endeavours and ILC will complement the relationship through our exploration technical strengths and ability to source out, identify and acquire opportunities.” Gary Schellenberg, CEO, TNR Gold Corp.
ILC has entered into a strategic relationship agreement with a prominent Asian-based company – Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Co. Ltd. Jiangxi Ganfeng specializes in the research, development, manufacturing and sale of lithium products worldwide.
Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Co. has committed to an initial 9.9% equity share in ILC through participating in a financing and intends to provide instrumental future support towards the development of ILC’s projects from a financial and technical perspective.
Ganfeng Lithium is based in Xinyu, Jiangxi Province, China and has developed a comprehensive lithium product chain – lithium metal and alloys, inorganic and organic lithium chemicals for the primary and secondary lithium battery market, pharmaceutical and new material industries.
Ganfeng’s principal market is in China with international exports to Europe, Japan, USA and India.
Ganfeng Lithium was founded in the year 2000, was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in August 2010, has recently reported USD6.3 million net income from total revenues of USD54 million in 2010 and currently has a market capitalization of approximately US$680 million.
“We welcome Ganfeng Lithium as a strategic investor in International Lithium with a prime directive to support the advancement of our core projects and ultimately as an integral member to assist us in realizing our goal to become a recognized international lithium and rare metals explorer and developer.” Mike Sieb, President International Lithium Corp.
Conclusion
The International Lithium Corp TSX.V – ILC story is starting with all the right ingredients and given projected lithium industry growth, it’s definitely one that should be on investors radar screens. Is it on yours?
If not, maybe it should be.
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This document is not and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for any investment. Richard Mills has based this document on information obtained from sources he believes to be reliable but which has not been independently verified.
Richard Mills makes no guarantee, representation or warranty and accepts no responsibility or liability as to its accuracy or completeness. Expressions of opinion are those of Richard Mills only and are subject to change without notice. Richard Mills assumes no warranty, liability or guarantee for the current relevance, correctness or completeness of any information provided within this Report and will not be held liable for the consequence of reliance upon any opinion or statement contained herein or any omission.
Furthermore, I, Richard Mills, assume no liability for any direct or indirect loss or damage or, in particular, for lost profit, which you may incur as a result of the use and existence of the information provided within this Report.
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