Major lithium exploration announced for Manitoba

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This article was published 06/09/2023 (770 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the coming year, New Age Metals is planning to undertake the largest lithium exploration program ever in Manitoba.

The company has just announced $7 million in exploration, teaming up with the Australia company Mineral Resources Ltd., one of the top five lithium producers in the world.

The exploration project will include 15,000 metres of diamond drilling as well as all sorts of geophysical surveys including soil and rock geochemical sampling grids and mapping/prospecting.

New Age is looking to capitalize on the current high level of interest in lithium development in Canada, something that most believe is essential for the development of a North American supply chain for the coming dominance of the electric vehicle.

Harry Barr, the CEO of New Age Metals, said, “There’s been lots of exploration in Canada but not much actual production going on, so we’re pretty much behind. We know that in the past few months Manitoba has expressed an interest in developing the lithium space.”

New Age has been active in Manitoba for about seven years and through that time it has amassed the largest mineral claims portfolio in the Winnipeg River/Cat Lake region about 140 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg known for the kind of rock formations in which lithium occurs.

The joint venture with Mineral Resources not only will provide financial underpinning to New Age so that it can concentrate on exploration rather than fundraising, it will also benefit from that company’s expertise in the field.

“Our partner Mineral Resources clearly understands the exploration business and we are happy for their technical and financial support,” said Barr. “Our 2023/24 budget illustrates the confidence our combined companies have in the future of lithium rare earth elements in Manitoba.”

Last month, New Age signed an option/joint venture binding term sheet with Native Mineral Resources, also an Australian company, to develop another lithium property that the company owns near Oxford House in Northern Manitoba.

Barr said, “Lots of junior mining companies either fundraise by selling shares or bring in partners. In the last few years the ones that bring in partners have been called project generators and that’s what we are, project generators. Our objective is try to option properties as early as we can to major or other junior mining companies. We have been pretty successful at that.”

The company is also actively seeking an option/joint venture partner for its newly acquired Northman and South Bay Lithium Projects in northern Manitoba as well as another project in Alaska.

New Age is also developing another mineral exploration property, the River Valley Palladium Project, 60 kilometres east-northeast of Sudbury.

In the province’s Critical Minerals Strategy that came out earlier this summer it quoted a report by the International Energy Agency, that forecasts lithium demand for use in electric vehicles and battery storage to grow by over 40 times by 2040.

In a recent blog posting by New Age, the company pointed out that while Manitoba was long the home of the only lithium producing mine in the country, the Tanco mine, that operation is owned by a Chinese company, which “contrasts with Canada’s goal to diminish its dependence on China.”

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New Age is one of about 20 companies currently engages in lithium exploration in the province. None, other than the already producing Tanco mine, have produced feasibility studies, a stage of development that immediately precedes a decision to go into production.

After having seen overall mineral exploration activity decline over the years in Manitoba, it has picked up significantly over the past three years, from $67.7 million in 2020 to $170 million last year, the highest level of expenditure in the province’s history.

New Age’s properties that it will be partnering with Mineral Resources on, lie in the lithium exploration hub in the southeastern portion of the province. Additional areas of lithium exploration are near Cross Lake and Wekusko Lake, east of the Town of Snow Lake.

In addition to the mineral exploration activity around lithium, there are also discussion taking place from a few different quarters about the potential to develop value-added processing of the mineral in Manitoba. That’s something that currently does not take place anywhere in North America and would require hundreds of millions of dollars in capital investment.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca