As the global demand for high-grade lithium continues to escalate, so does the market and the boots-on-the-ground exploration companies on the hunt for the new “white gold.”
Toronto-based Lithium Ionic Inc. (TSXV.LTH, Forum) is a Canadian junior exploration company focused on developing commercial-grade lithium economically and safely. The company currently holds a 100% interest in over 13-hundred hectares in Brazil’s prolific Aracuai Lithium Province.
The Market Herald’s Dave Jackson was recently joined by the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Blake Hylands, to talk about this emerging clean energy project in a producing mining camp.
TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
SH1: To start off with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the history of the company?
BH: Sure. I’m a Geo by background with about 15 years of experience in different metals, and a lot of time in the gold space. Most recently I have been working on a project in Quebec, a gold project with Troilus Gold, that we took from a million ounces to 10 million ounces after we acquired it from First Quantum Minerals. The project, Brazilian based, just like you said, and a fantastic mining jurisdiction. Exciting that we’re going to be going public next week. We’re very, very excited about that. We have some news to come out quickly as well on that, and we have drills spinning on the ground, so we’re very, very excited to get going and it should be a really exciting few months here.
SH2: Can you update us on any exciting, new company developments and-or milestones?
BH: Absolutely, obviously going public is a huge part of our next step for us. It’s been a tough market out there, in so many spaces, lithium has held up very well. We were talking about before coming on here, just the global push for a mineral, I’ve certainly never seen in my career – very, very rare to see sort of all focus turn to one particular advancement – the electrification of vehicles, and pretty well everything else, and moving away from dependency on fossil fuels. Certainly, jurisdictionally, we’re very excited to be in the Minas Gerais area, and certainly one of the prolific mining regions of Brazil. Produces almost 30% of the ores in all of Brazil, over half of the iron ore in that region. 75% of the world’s niobium. So, a mining jurisdiction, great place to work and we’ll be able to come public next week. We’ll have news on some of the trench work we’ve already done, proving up that we have a real deposit there and then drill results in short order.
SH3: For our investor audience that might be new to lithium mining in Brazil, can you unpack some of the jurisdiction’s pros and cons?
BH: I think again, I just touched on it, an excellent jurisdiction. Brazil is a large country. We’re not in the Amazon, we’re not in some of the more, I’ll call them difficult regions to work. We’re not running into a lot of first nations issues and that sort of areas where we would need to put an enhanced amount of awareness. We’re kind of sandwiched in between two significant projects – CBL, which is a private family-owned operation that’s been producing lithium for 30 years, battery quality lithium for 30 years. Then to the south of us, Sigma Lithium, which is publicly traded, and they are moving towards production this year. Both of these projects looking at about 30,000 tons per annum in those projects. We love where we are. We staked our claims around the same time Sigma did. They’ve done an excellent job bringing that company from about 15 million to roughly 2 billion and outlined a 50-million-ton resource. They’ve done an excellent job there. The nice thing for us is we think we have proof of concept north and south of where we are.
SH4: Alongside increasing the conventional lithium supply – which is expected to expand by over 300 percent between now and 2030 – how are you placed to expand operations to meet demand?
BH: This is the beauty about, kind of to that point, with the proof of concept, there are so many projects popping up now, particularly in the hard rock lithium space. It’s understandable with it being such a strategic focus for so many countries. The difficulty with lithium is that it’s not always of quality to be worked with and used, certainly in the battery space. We’re early stage, we’re starting to drill now. We’re very optimistic about what we’re seeing so far, but the nice thing is we’re hosted in the same pegmatites, the same sort of spodumene showings, that two producers and soon-to-be producers are as well. The standout for them has been coarse grain, low iron oxide, low mica, kind of ideal for high-grade lithium content. Both projects looking at over a one and a half percent which, on a global scale, is extremely high grade and we’re seeing very much the same type of mineralization. What does that allow us to do, to your question? It allows us to outline these dykes and intrusions very quickly, outline them very quickly and push towards production decisions very, very quickly as well. Hopefully, as long as mother nature works alongside us. In that way, we’ve started EIA process and looking at baseline studies already right now, because we know those things take a year. We have a great experience team there and we’re taking the steps to grow very, very quickly.
SH5: Your property is located between the C-B-L mine north and the Barreiro SIGMA deposit south – both longstanding, highly productive lithium mines. For potential investors, what kind of future development and progress can we expect at your nearby project?
BH: I think that we have the capacity or the space, and from soil anomalies and what we’ve seen from trenching, and now what we’re seeing from drilling, I think we have the room and, and the expression of those pegmatites to get to a place where we could scale up to a similar size as Barreiro very quickly. I don’t think it’s hard to imagine that if the drilling makes sense, that we’re going to see rapid expansion, hopefully through 10-million-tons very quickly, and through that 20-million-ton Barreiro mark. I mean, I know those are lofty goals, but we’re drilling there now, we’re confident in what we have. If we can get to that point with those three areas outlining, well, call it maybe over a hundred thousand tons per annum of production, it would become one of the premier high-grade lithium districts, if it isn’t already, in the world. We’re very, very excited to add and build off of their success.
SH6: Simply put, what makes your lithium property particularly intriguing?
BH: Some of those points there, it’s really about having battery-grade lithium. It’s really about having high-quality lithium and I think that’s what is stand out for this particular area. We’re talking about lithium hydroxide. We’re talking about hard rock lithium. We’re talking about coarse grain, high grade, low nasty, perfect environment to come online with exactly what the world is looking for – as far as electric vehicles and certainly the electrification of many things going forward. The district itself sets us apart. I think it’s also important to note we just have such a strong, experienced, South American team on the ground that is a huge advantage for us, and quite honestly, it’s why we have this property in such an excellent location.
SH7: Blake, what separates Lithium Ionic from the competition and makes your business model unique?
BH: I think our team. I think the South American team is just very, very unique, led by Helio Diniz. We have over 40 years of experience through him and through our team, probably a hundred plus years of experience. Dave Gower, as well, their Falconbridge-Miranda days, loads of experience in South America, and huge success in bringing projects online and new discoveries in the area. Like I said earlier, the reason we even have this ground, is that six years ago they recognized that this was a unique opportunity to pick up ground on lithium, which was not really in vogue the way it is now, and be able to hold that understanding where the world was going.
It’s having that team on the ground, in my opinion, that understands how to get things done that are organized. They’re used to outlining huge deposits, managing huge projects and ultimately being excellent explorers. We’re going to take the approach that we can delineate something very quickly but we’re going to continue to show new exploration discoveries and we know we have the team in place. If I had to answer, I think the team separates us and their approach certainly separates us from any of our competition.
SH8: What’s the long-term strategy for the company moving forward into 2022 and beyond, and what should retail, and institutional investors be looking out for?
BH: It’s exactly those two fronts. We’re going to be aggressive. We’re going to move very quickly. We have drills on the ground now. We’re going to be very newsy as we come out next week, you’ll see some of the trench results come out that are going to outline some pretty excellent results. We’re following that up, drilling very quickly, as we outline some of these intrusions that have been shown in soil anomalies and trenching. As we kind of give extent to those from the drill bit, we will ramp up the drilling quickly. Hopefully delineate a resource by the end of the year or to the start of the first quarter of next year, which is, we think is going to be robust and high grade. At the same time, continue to look to add ground where it makes sense, use our team’s knowledge of the area to make strategic moves in that location, as well as make new discoveries.
We have of course the area we’re talking a lot about now, which is sort of sandwich between a producer and Sigma’s project, but we also have quite a few other showings in the area that have a real high potential for the same style of pegmatite showing as well, coming off of a huge granitic intrusion. I think we’re going to be extremely newsy, if I had to chat with any shareholder, it would be you’re going to see us making a lot of waves very quickly. We’re going to have great news flow. It’s going to be an exciting year. We’re going to move quickly and continue to add to the story as we go along.
SH9: And finally, Blake, if there’s anything I’ve overlooked please feel free to elaborate.
BH: I think you covered it. We are in a unique market here for lithium. As we said off the top, the whole world is looking at where are we going to find this and how are we going to meet the demand. It’s projects like this that can ramp up quickly, making new discoveries and continue to build on a world-class district that is going to help support that push to EV. That kind of sums it up but that’s it for me.
For regular updates, visit lithiumionic.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by The Market Herald..
