Post by
Tiger737373 on Dec 06, 2023 3:03pm
The Chronicle-Journal
If you ask me if I'm excited about this small-cap company, here's an article that be appeared on November 25, 2023 in Thunder Bay's The Chronicle Journal written by journalist Sandi Krasowski and I will tell you that I am really excited to see the developments in 2024.
Firm sees opportunity for lithium mining, conversion
By Sandi Krasowski Local Journalism Initiative Reporter The Chronicle-Journal Nov 25, 2023
Rock Teck Lithium, which has chosen Red Rock as the site for its lithium converter and processing plant, is moving ahead with establishing a Northen Ontario supply chain.
The exploration company entered into a memorandum of understanding with Imagine Lithium Inc to explore co-operation opportunities including commercial partnership structures, joint exploration and development of their projects.
Both companies have been actively exploring and drilling, resulting in the identification of significant spodumene-bearing pegmatites. Spodumene is the key lithium-bearing mineral found in lithium-rich granite pegmatites.
The partnership makes sense, says Robert MacDonald, Rock Teck's general manager who pointed out that Rock Tech's Georgia Lake property and Imagine's Jackpot Project are within 15 Kilometres of planned Georgia Lake concentrator and share contiguous boundaries between both companies' respective projects.
«« The entire process for Rock Teck is that we want to not only mine the material, we really want to convert it into lithium hydroxide. »» MacDonald said. «« We've been working on a converter that takes spodumene product and converts it into lithium hydroxide. Our plant is at the point of being permitted in Germany and ready for construction pretty much as we speak this week. So we've done a bit of work at that site. We're looking at creating multiple converters and we see that Northwestern Ontario has a lot of opportunity to create that same sort of business. »»
MacDonald said their two focuses revolve around mining the product and recycling the lithium hydroxide for reuse.
«« That becomes more of a circular type of business model, »» he said. «« Once there's an inventory out there, we want to produce it. It's a developing industry that is still fairly new to everybody and there is a lot of interest in it. In the Thunday Bay area, there are a multiple people looking at the same sort of business model and we're first trying to figure out what makes the most sense to Rock Teck as a company. It is an evolving story in Northwestern Ontario, but I'm pretty optimistic that we're going to see convergence here. »»
MacDonald says the operation will make a big impact on the economy in Northwestern Ontario.
He noted that between the mine and the converter, there could be in the neighbourhood of 300 full-time direct or indirect jobs as well as opening up business opportunities for businesses in the area.
MacDonald says although Rock Teck is not funded, There are funding programs being announced at government levels. He called the project a «« huge capital investment »» that is very difficult for any single company to come up with funds.