Mercedes the latest carmaker to flag interest in mining investment to secure raw material supply

• Burley doubles down on the hard rock lithium prospectivity of the Abitibi Hub district of Quebec by moving to acquire the Bouvier project
• Project developer Liontown will farm into Olympio’s early stage Mulline and Mulwarrie lithium projects
• Lake Resources confirms grades and purity greater than 99.8% following independent testing of lithium carbonate production at the Kachi project

All your lithium news, Monday April 3.

 

Car producers sticking their fingers into mining projects to secure supply is becoming increasingly common and Mercedes Benz is the latest major manufacturer to join this club.

At the carmaker’s annual environmental, social, and governance virtual conference in Germany last week, Mercedes Benz CEO Ola Kaellenius said the company is willing to allocate capital to support or ramp up a mining business if an opportunity presents itself.

The comments come after the German automaker opened a raw materials office in Canada last year and entered into battery materials cooperation agreements with the Canadian government to secure access to raw materials like lithium, nickel, and cobalt.

Mercedez Benz also signed a contract with Rock Tech Lithium for the supply of 10,000tpa of lithium hydroxide a year from 2026.

 

Here’s how ASX lithium stocks are tracking:

A total of 35 lithium companies finished in the green, 38 fell flat and another 64 tumbled into the red zone.

 

Who’s got news out?

BURLEY MINERALS (ASX:BUR)

Burley is doubling down on its belief in the hard rock lithium prospectivity of the Abitibi Hub district of Quebec, Canada, by moving to acquire the Bouvier project.

The 219 hectare project – 14km northwest of the company’s Chubb lithium project – has ready access to supporting infrastructure such sealed roads, operating rail networks within the district, multiple port options and established towns, mines, and a hydro-powered grid.

The Abitibi District is home to existing mines and developments such as the North American Lithium mine (101.9Mt at 1.06% Li2O) run by Sayona Mining and Piedmont Lithium that hosts an operating lithium concentrator, as well as the Authier lithium project that is a proposed satellite mine for spodumene blending ore for the NAL concentrator.

 

OLYMPIO METALS (ASX:OLY)

Project developer Liontown (ASX:LTR) will farm into OLY’s early stage Mulline and Mulwarrie lithium projects in the eastern goldfields of WA.

It’s fairly low cost for LTR as far as earn in deals go, with the $5.6bn stock able to earn a 51% interest in the projects by spending just $400,000.

OLY can then elect to form a JV and share exploration costs, but if it doesn’t LTR can accrue another 39% by spending $1m within three years.

First LTR will fund a soil/rock sampling program over the next four months to make an initial assessment before deciding to proceed with the deal.

 

LAKE RESOURCES (ASX:LKE)

Lake Resources and DLE tech partner, Lilac Solutions, has confirmed grades and purity greater than 99.8% following independent testing of lithium carbonate production at the joint owned Kachi project in Argentina.

This test, performed by Saltworks with independent analysis by two third party labs, validates the major commercial process systems for the Kachi Project.

LKE says it also confirms its ability to produce high-quality, battery-grade lithium carbonate from Lake’s brine resource using Lilac DLE technology.

KRAKOTOA (ASX:KTA)

A remote sensing spectral review of the King Tamba project has defined extensive lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatite potential with the highest ranked targets correlating with previously mapped pegmatite outcrops.

These highly prospective areas for near surface pegmatites provide KTA with a strong platform for future geochemical and mapping exploration.

The area around the historical pit has previously been mined for tantalum and tin, increasing the confidence of further pegmatite swarm development within the area.

Field testing of these targets will be carried out as a priority in the upcoming field season which is expected to begin this month.

 

COSMOS EXPLORATION (ASX:CMO)

Cosmos has entered into a binding agreement to acquire up to a 75% interest in Lasalle lithium project in Canada’s popular James Bay district.

The company says the acquisition complements its recently acquired Corvette Far East Project bolstering Cosmo’s high-potential lithium exploration portfolio.

The Lasalle project is 100km east of Patriot Battery Metals Inc’s(ASX: PMT) CV5 lithium discovery and 30km north of Winsome Resources Limited’s (ASX: WR1) Adina lithium discovery.

 

 

WINSOME RESOURCES (ASX:WR1)

Assay results have been received from Winsome’s Adina East prospect with new results returning up to 1.50% Li2O over 12.2m from 63.3m and 1.77% Li2O over 6m from 83.4m.

Winsome says these results bring the total strike length of lithium mineralised trend at Adina to more than 3km with mineralisation remaining open to the east and west.

Planning is now underway to test the broader Adina project to determine the scale of mineralisation as well as the link between Adina East, Adina Main and the previous drilling undertaken by MetalsTech.

 

CHARGER METALS (ASX:CHR)

Results up to 4m at 2.06% Li2O from 145m have been received from the Medcalf prospect, within the wide Lake Johnston project in WA, after drilling delineated a swarm of stacked spodumene-bearing pegmatites within a 100m wide corridor.

The results are from a maiden reverse circulation drilling program completed at the project earlier this year, with other stand out hits including 6m at 1.56% Li20 from 19m and 5m at 1.41% Li20 from 83m.

Assays for the final eight drill holes are still pending, however results are expected in the coming weeks and preparations are already underway for a follow-up drill program to test for extensions to high-grade lithium mineralisation.

 

RED DIRT METALS (ASX:RDT)

The scale of Red Dirt’s Yinnetharra lithium project continues to grow with drilling activities in the last month adding to the overall footprint of the Malinda lithium prospect.

Multiple rigs are on site rapidly advancing the scale of known lithium bearing pegmatites at Malinda with a dedicated regional geology team exploring the tenure uncovering further lithium pegmatite fields.

With more than 4,500 Malinda samples in the lab being processed, the company says it is due for a steady flow of results back over the next six to 12 weeks.

 

ARGOSY (ASX:AGY)

Argosy says the 2,000tpa operation commissioning and ramp-up phase works is progressing at the Rincon lithium project with full ramp-up toward steady-state production operations targeted from end the end of Q2.

Current batch production trials during commissioning and ramp-up phase works have currently produced 10.2 tonnes of battery quality lithium carbonate product, with average product quality of 99.79% achieved to date during the 2,000tpa operations.

AGY says the 2,000tpa commissioning phase works are nearing completion, in preparation for continuous production trials.

 

PAN ASIA METALS (ASX:PAM)

Assay results for a further four holes completed at the Reung Kiet lithium project have been received.

Step out drilling demonstrates extensions at depth from the existing mineral resource with further assays awaited.

In the meantime, drilling has now shifted to the Bang I Tum lithium prospect 8km to the north of Reung Kiet to evaluate the exploration target and adjacent prospective zones.

 

LARVOTTO RESOURCES (ASX:LRV)

Over nine pegmatite zones have been identified at Larvotto’s Merivale prospect within the wider Eyre project in WA.

The aim of the drilling was to find the location of pegmatites beneath the soil cover following the significant lithium soil geochemistry anomaly.

While confirming they contain anomalous mineralisation, drilling also tested an airborne geophysical high magnetic trend to the west of the lithium anomaly that demonstrated a discrete, yet significant, nickel soil anomaly associated with it.

Next steps involve testing these results with RC drilling, which is capable of penetrating the hard pegmatite zones at depth.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Burley Minerals, Charger Metals, and Lake Resources are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article. 

The post Eye on Lithium: Mercedes the latest carmaker to flag interest in mining investment to secure raw material supply appeared first on Stockhead.

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