Rio Tinto and Tesla If both Rio and Tesla were interested in Frontier, one would think that Rio, being the experienced miner, would have the upper hand and particularly, because they’ll have all this equipment and manpower ready to redeploy at PAK when Diavik closes down in 2025. Tesla, on the other hand, has no direct mining experience, so presumably would have to partner with a miner to develop PAK. But wait a minute, isn’t Frontier’s parent company, Cosbec, already an experienced miner? Cosbec is one of North America’s largest independent drilling and blasting companies, with a large fleet of specialized equipment and extensive experience in contract mining. Frontier and Cosbec could mine the deposit, while Tesla looked after building the lithium upgrader plant in Thunder Bay, Sudbury or where ever. Frontier/Cosbec would likely jump at an opportunity to get directly involved with mining PAK themselves. This could get interesting.
The Mookster