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ReGIonAL RoUnD-UP

Canadian lithium continues to charge

ith prospective geology, underex- duction a new mine,” he said. “As we tran- skills and mindset for mining is already in
Wplored tenements, encouraging gov- sition to cleaner, mineral intensive forms of place,” he said. “I think that’s generally why
ernment policies and plenty of downstream energy, democratic countries are going to it’s rated among the top jurisdictions by the
opportunities, Canada continues to firm as need access to stable and secure sources Fraser Institute each year.
a serious lithium player. of critical minerals. Clearly, rapid develop- “I also think it can stack up against the
Despite Goldman Sachs’ divisive claim ment of these sources is urgently required.” likes of China because of some of the in-
earlier this year the battery mineral was due McKinsey forecast in April global lithium centives the Canadian Government puts in
for oversupply, Winsome Resources Ltd demand could grow from 500,000t to 4mt place.
managing director Chris Evans told Paydirt by 2030, while supply would grow by 300%. “In Quebec, we get 40% of our explora-
the excitement for lithium was all the con- At the time of print, Australia accounted tion expenditure back in tax credits from the
trary after attending the annual PDAC con- for roughly 40% of the world’s lithium ex- Government. There are also various grants
ference in Toronto. ports but Evans expects Canada to con- available for exploration, metallurgical test
“It was completely at odds with what you tinue carving out its own stake in the market work and pursuing ecological accredita-
hear in the media and what the markets due to its encouraging policies for end us- tions; all of which we’re applying for.
seem to be indicating at the moment. It was ers. “Those sort of early stage monetary fac-
a really strong sentiment,” he said. “Having “I think Canada in particular has been tors make it competitive to get a project off
a booth at PDAC, just the foot traffic alone much more proactive than Australia to- the ground in Canada.”
was attracting so many people. wards developing a battery industry and the Such incentives continue to support Win-
“Being in a battery-associated material, adoption of EVs,” he said. “In Quebec, you some’s exploration at the Cancet, Adina
we saw loads of support. People on all lev- get a $C8,000 grant for a new EV, $C5,000 and Sirmac-Clapier lithium projects in the
els – investors, contractors, consultants, for a secondhand one. They have specific James Bay Region of Quebec.
other players in the Canadian mining space targets in place for 2030; 50% sale of EVs The company recently completed a win-
– were all very interested in us because and bans on new ICEs by 2035.” ter drill programme with intersections such
we’re involved in a battery mineral. The vibe Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta also as 25.98m @ 1.55% lithium from 5.72m,
at PDAC was excellent for battery materials continue to rank highly as attractive loca- including 11.28m @ 2.45% from 5.72m and
in general.” tions for mining investments, according to 4m @ 3.89m.
Speaking at the conference, Canada the 2021 Fraser Institute survey. Winsome will complete field work
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Evans said the Canadian Government throughout the warmer seasons, targeting
Wilkinson said it was important to speed up also provides strong financial incentives for a maiden resource for Cancet next year.
the development of battery mineral mines junior explorers to support a pit-to-product “We got some really high-grade inter-
during a “generational economic opportu- supply chain in-country, while overseas cepts, we extended our known pegmatites
nity”. constructors such as China face instability. from 600m to 1,200m. We’ve done a total
“It simply cannot be the case that it takes “Because Canada has historically been of roughly 6,000m drilling now,” Evans said.
up to 15 years to develop and bring into pro- a gold mining country, the infrastructure, “Because it’s summer over there now,
we’ve got field teams at the main orebody
stripping that back to properly map and to
figure out where next to drill to extend it.
“We’ve got other teams out in the field in-
vestigating exploration targets that we gen-
erated from geophysical surveys. They’re
really going to spend the next three months
on the ground investigating those.
“In the autumn going into winter, we’ll be
drilling at Cancet; both the main known ore-
body and exploration targets.”
Explorers like Winsome haven’t typically
fielded interest from end producers using
lithium, such as automakers, but that has
changed in recent months.
In July, researcher Fitch Solutions report-
ed 16 investments from automakers into
upstream lithium miners in an 18-month
span – an “exponential increase” from just
two investments prior to 2021.
Toyota was an early mover in 2018 when
it invested into 15% of Allkem Ltd (then
named Orocobre) to get its hands on lithium
brines in Latin America.
“We have been approached by some
Chris Evans on site at the Adina lithium project in Quebec parties that are much further downstream

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