From the sometimes dark and dingy bedroom corners that play home to online gaming, to the searingly bright lights of one of the world’s hottest commodities, Lithium Universe Limited has orchestrated a remarkable ASX transformation.
Led into a new era by lithium visionary Iggy Tan – who was, in many ways, a man before his time when he spearheaded lithium producer Galaxy Resources some 20 years ago – Lithium Universe is vowing to “create a new chapter in the history of lithium exploration and project development” at its Apollo project at James Bay, in the northern part of the Canadian province of Quebec. It is a far cry from only five months ago when the company was still trading as Mogul Games.
Now, Mr Tan has assembled what he describes as a “lithium dream team” to drive the new-look company, which completed its reinvention when it confirmed last Friday it had raised its maximum subscription of $4.5 million at a share price of 2 cents each, to establish an initial market capitalisation of $12 million.
Lithium Universe non-executive chairman Iggy Tan said: “The name of your new company, ‘Lithium Universe Limited’, is a cheeky reminder to the lithium industry that we can do it all again. My belief is that while there are many lithium explorers in the world today, only a handful have the expertise and skills required to effectively develop and construct viable projects. Lithium Universe has a rich pedigree of lithium experience and skill, and our goal should be to establish a lithium processing hub in Québec, Canada, as quickly as possible.”
The company’s reimagined future could barely be in greater contrast to its recent past.
Back in December, 2021, Mogul Games revealed plans to raise $1.6 million to fuel its “buy-and-build” strategy in the gaming sector, focusing on profitable games companies with strong teams, solid intellectual property, engaged audiences and continuous growth. Its targets included PC, console and mobile games companies and existing and new business models, including play-to-earn, where players could receive rewards with real-world value.
Cast forward two years and Lithium Universe will now kick-off its battery-metal transformation in Canada with its 80 per cent interest in the Apollo, Adina South, Adina West and Margot Lake projects.
The company also has an 80 per cent interest in the Voyager rare earths project in Tasmania and sole ownership of the Lefroy lithium play in Western Australia’s Goldfields region, next to Alliance Mineral Assets’ Bald Hill mine that has 26.5 million tonnes at 1 per cent lithium oxide.
Lithium Universe says it gathered its experienced brains trust with the overarching and deliberate aim of delivering a lithium processing hub in Québec as quickly as possible. And there is little doubt that it is its Apollo project that is leading the company’s charge.
Its team will address mining operations through Patrick Scallan, who ran the massive lithium hard-rock mine at Greenbushes for 25 years. He will oversee its expansion from 200,000 tonnes per annum to 1.4 million alongside former Greenbushes colleague Roger Pover, who brings experience as the plant manager at the Mt Cattlin lithium mining operation near Ravensthorpe.
To lead downstream processing, the company has hired Dr Jingyuan Liu, the former general manager of technology at Galaxy Resources and considered a world leader in the lithium processing field. Dr Liu was enlisted to resolve commissioning challenges at Tianqi Lithium’s Kwinana-based lithium hydroxide plant.
Another addition to the company, Huy Nguyen, contributed to the design and construction supervision at the Mt Cattlin project and also brings expertise to downstream planning.
Former general manager of operations at Galaxy Resources, Terry Stark, will act as a mining advisor after having previously overseen operations at both Mt Cattlin and at James Bay, providing local knowledge to progress the project on the ground. Poignantly, Mr Stark has developed strong relationships with the Cree First Nation people, who inhabit land around Apollo.
And then there is Mr Tan, who was well ahead of the play in terms of lithium mining and exploration at Galaxy, but light years ahead when it came to going downstream with lithium hydroxide. He was at the helm when Galaxy built the world’s first large-scale vertically-integrated, mine-to-battery-grade lithium carbonate project in the Chinese province of Jiangsu more than two decades ago.
Fast forward to today and even the smartest guy in the room when it comes to lithium – Mineral Resources’ Chris Ellison – has only recently worked out there is way more money in building lithium chemical plants than there is in mining lithium.
The Apollo project area spreads across a vast 240 square kilometres, with 17 pegmatite outcrops visible at the surface. The claim was staked early last year by a private owner and is on the same trend as and adjacent to ground owned by Patriot Battery Metals and Winsome Resources – both of which have hit thick, shallow and high-grade coarse spodumene mineralisation during drilling.
Patriot Battery Metals, about 50km to the north-west, is sitting on an inferred resource of 109.2 million tonnes at 1.42 per cent lithium oxide and 160 ppm tantalum oxide at its Corvette CV5 spodumene pegmatite deposit. Its best drill hit was 156m at 2.12 per cent lithium oxide.
Patriot says its ground contains another five pegmatite clusters and that CV5 is the biggest lithium pegmatite mineral resource in the Americas and the eighth-biggest globally. The deposit remains open along strike and at depth in some areas. The CV lithium trend is about 50km long and contains more than 70 spodumene-bearing pegmatite outcrops within the six clusters, with more than 20km of strike still underexplored.
Winsome has produced a regular news flow of eye-catching assays since October last year when it started drilling about 20km east of Apollo at its Adina deposit. The best drill result was 107m at 1.34 per cent lithium oxide from a shallow 2.3m.
Recent step-out drilling by Winsome this month returned more solid assays as high as 61.2m at 1.37 per cent lithium oxide from a shallow 8.9m, 35.4m at 1.98 per cent from 251.2m, 20.4m at 1.62 per cent from 345.2m and 24.1m at 2.18 per cent from 268.5m.
High-grade Adina zones include some thinner, but lithium-rich ultra-high-grade hits of 7m at 2.14 per cent lithium oxide from 29m, 8.1m at 2.6 per cent from 62m, 16.6m at 1.97 per cent from 32.4m and 10.3m at 2.66 per cent lithium oxide from 88m. Winsome now says the deposit shows mineralisation through a 3km strike length that remains open to the east and west and has the potential for multiple parallel zones below the main bodies.
It is worth noting that when Lithium Universe’s ground was pegged in May last year, Patriot’s market cap was estimated at about $228 million and Winsome’s was tipping the scales at about $55 million. Their respective values now weigh in at somewhere in the vicinity of $1.7 billion and $273.8 million.
Those numbers will have Lithium Universe’s boardroom and investors licking their lips in hope.
Further afield, about 350km south-west of Apollo, specialist lithium chemicals company Allkem last week increased its James Bay project mineral resource by 173 per cent to 110.2 million tonnes at 1.30 per cent lithium oxide, including 54.3 million tonnes at 1.30 percent in the indicated category and 55.9 million tonnes at 1.29 per cent in the inferred category.
Some Allkem drill hits from its most recent batch of holes include 114m at 1.73 per cent lithium oxide, 94 m at 1.87 per cent and 55m at 1.84 per cent. Legacy drilling results did not disappoint, with some assays going 125m at 1.7 per cent, 71m at 1.89 per cent and 30m at 1.78 per cent lithium oxide.
Lithium Universe says the coarse nature of the James Bay spodumene is ideal for cheap and simple density media separation (DMS) processing, as was used successfully at Mt Cattlin.
DMS relies upon centrifugal units, or cyclones, which utilise high speed and tangential pumping to create a vortex within the vessel. Any mineral with a higher density than the medium will be subject to greater centrifugal forces and will be pulled to the outer edge of the vortex, while any lower-density mineral will remain at the centre. The differing minerals are then removed through separate discharge lines as a “sink” or “float”.
Earlier this week, Latin Resources revealed it had achieved a 5.5 per cent lithium oxide concentrate, with a 93.1 per cent recovery rate from DMS processing in pilot plant testwork on its Brazilian spodumene. Coarse DMS product is more favourable for conversion into lithium hydroxide due to its reduced fines content.
Instead of exploring for the sake of exploration, Lithium Universe’s mission is to quickly obtain a resource and construct a spodumene-producing mine in Québec in a bid to replicating the Mt Cattlin success story.
Wildfires recently tore through the James Bay region, forcing local mining companies to temporarily curtail exploration and production activities. But now the flames have died down, Lithium Universe is adamant it has the wherewithal to get its operation smoking.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Andrew Duffy
