“Undervalued, Underexplored”: A Lithium Mining Opportunity Like No Other

Despite its apparent vastness, Planet Earth is still a finite place. With finite resources. And, today, there are only certain places where viable & reliable, environmentally-conscious, yet profitable mining operations can still occur while producing metals and minerals on a mass scale that will meet the critical needs and voracious appetite of the global New Green Economy.

Today, an emerging Company is now on the cusp of capitalizing on one of the planet’s most unique mining opportunities. And the timing may never be better than now for investors to pay close attention to a new opportunity, in a relatively new and emerging mining jurisdiction.

And one Company has staked claim to the immense underexplored and undervalued resource that sits just below Mongolia’s massive Gobi Desert. Lithium brine extraction.

ION Energy Ltd. (TSX-V.ION, Forum) is an early-stage exploration Company that currently holds one of the largest world-class grade lithium licenses by area, in a low-cost, skilled labour jurisdiction, neighbouring the major consumers of the world. And the Company is now poised to become a significant player in Asia’s now-booming lithium market. ION Energy boasts a “first-mover advantage in a low-cost operating environment.”

Recently listed on the TSX Venture Exchange, ION has acquired a unique and uniquely large land package in southeastern Mongolia – an area known as the Baavhai Uul.

ION Energy’s understanding and experience in the region made Mongolia an easy choice for the home of the company’s first Lithium project. ION has secured a sizeable 81,758 hectare license in the southern Gobi region of Mongolia and is expected to commence an exploration program on the project in 2020, focusing on two main lithium brine targets. Based on previous exploration work, the company believes the main aquifer on the property is relatively shallow at around 20 meters below the surface.

With confirmed reserves of at least 200,000 tonnes of lithium, Mongolia is among the world’s most significant and substantial prospective sources of the rare-earth mineral. Confirmed lithium deposits are largely concentrated in southeastern Mongolia.


Exploring & Developing Mongolia’s Vast Lithium Salars

Limited work by the Mongolian University of Science and Technology has indicated lithium content in brines of up to 810 ppm Li for brine and lake sediment samples on the Baavhai-Uul Project. ION also boasts a location and infrastructure advantage over South American producers, operating just 30 kilometres by road to the Mongolia-China border crossing.


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Based on robust and growing investor demand for low cost lithium production, ION Energy boasts many favourable elements in its efforts to bring this energy to market that make it an ideal Company to look deeper into. At this early stage, it is a very considerable option to enter into the market as the green revolution and ultimate third wave of the lithium rush really takes off.


Why Mongolia and Why Lithium Mining?

At around 1.5 million square kilometres (603,909 square miles), Mongolia is the 18th-largest and the most sparsely populated sovereign state in the world, with a population of just over 3.3 million people

Traditionally a nomadic, agricultural-based economy, Mongolia is now pivoting toward a resource-based economy becoming a frontier for lithium brine mining exploration and extraction.

The central Asian country’s generous corporate tax breaks and policies that are increasingly friendly toward foreign enterprises have encouraged North American companies to freely capitalize on Mongolia’s mineral resources. In 2017, the Mongolian Federal Government signed a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) with Canada, to ensure “greater predictability and certainty” for Canadian investors working in the country.


In the News

On September 25th, ION Energy Ltd. shared the news of the appointment of a new Chief Finance Officer, on the heels of a September 15th announcement of a new board member and two special advisors who bring a wealth of experience to ION. Paul Fornazzari brings a particular expertise in lithium mining, as former Chair of Lithium Americas and Director of Neo Lithium Corp. Don Hains is a global lithium expert, having authored the guidelines for best practices in lithium brine resources under NI 43-101, and with experience working in Asia and particularly in Mongolia. The Company also provided an update on the exploration program.

The big news for investors is that the fully-funded exploration is set to commence in the coming weeks beginning with Seismic and moving on to Controlled Source Audio-frequency Magnetotelluric (CSAMT) testing. The Company expects to provide updates on the exploration program on a regular basis going forward.


From the CEO

Stockhouse Editorial recently reached out to the Company’s articulate and visionary CEO, Ali Haji, to discuss a wide variety of topics that would be of interest to investors in the lithium exploration and mining space. Mr. Haji brings over a decade of international experience in asset management, risk analysis, and program governance. In addition, Ali has been an advisor to multiple mining companies over the last 4 years. He was previously an advisor to ATMA Capital Markets Ltd and Steppe Gold Ltd. (TSX:STGO). Mr. Haji is also a director of Antler Hill Mining Ltd (TSX-V:AHM.V) and Spirit Banner II Capital Corp. (TSX-V.SBTC.P).

Ali holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Western Ontario.

We asked the CEO to tell us a bit about the Baavhai Uul Lithium Brine Project and why Mongolia is such an attractive new lithium mining jurisdiction?

AH: Thanks for this opportunity to share highlights of our Baavhai Uul project. ION Energy was founded in 2017, and our management and governance teams already had years of successful Mongolian projects under our collective belts. So we recognized the completely untapped lithium potential in Mongolia, and acquired the largest land exploration licence ever granted by its government. And as you already mentioned, it is the first lithium brine licence awarded, as well. The early results for the Baavhai Uul project helped ‘seal the deal’ for us, with its promising results showing a maximum grade of 811ppm Lithium.

The Baavhai Uul acquisition was very appealing to the us not just because of its size, but its extremely favourable geographic location. Just a few kilometres from the Chinese border, our site has the advantage of low-cost infrastructure and transportation to the world’s leader in battery manufacturing and EV consumer-base.

As a follow up, we queried the CEO to discuss the long-term strategy for the company moving forward and how he sees the lithium exploration sector evolving in Mongolia?

AH: We took a measured and strategic approach – after all, timing is everything – and waited to launch in August, when the world was ready to prepare for a ‘green recovery’.

So for the long-term outlook, we are committed to taking the same thoughtful approach. In fact, we committed to a 2-year voluntary escrow for management and insiders which clearly shows that the ION team is in this for the long haul. ION has been ready to embark on its fully-funded exploration, which will be starting now. We expect drilling to start before the end of the year, and then we will keep our head down for the next 12-18 months to work diligently to prove that Baavhai Uul is the world-class asset that we believe it to be.

We know that the third-wave, a green revolution spurred by government spending, of the global lithium demand is just starting, and we know that our neighbours in China have the largest demand for EVs and manufacture/refine the majority of all batteries/battery grade Li. So, ION has ‘first-mover’ advantage in the untapped Mongolian lithium landscape to meet this pending demand head-on. All of that to say, I believe that the lithium exploration sector in Mongolia is set to explode – and ION’s long-term strategy has put it ahead of that curve.

And finally, we asked Mr. Haji what’s next for Ion and what investors should be watching for in the upcoming months?

AH: This Fall is all about our fully-funded exploration. The ION team will provide regular updates to our investors on the exploration, first with the seismic survey and then the CSAMT. And of course, with great anticipation we will be mobilizing the company owned drill rig before the end of 2020.


Investors Corner: Project Highlights

• ION Energy Ltd. is a lithium exploration company targeting a prospective lithium brine project in Mongolia. The project would represent the first lithium brine mining licence award in the history of Mongolia’s mining industry.
• Strong in-country team with proven track record: The ION Energy team consists of a solid mix of Mongolian nationals with mining and government advisory backgrounds, and others with executive experience in the mining industry – with a total of 100-plus combined years of mining and exploration experience. This team was instrumental in the recent successes of Steppe Gold (TSX: STGO) – a commercial gold producer with a projected yield of 60,000 oz this year, in its first year of production.
• Baavhai Uul: The project is located in the arid Gobi Desert, with high evaporation rates and low precipitation rates that are considered optimal for the extraction of lithium brine. Early assay results returned an average lithium grade of 426 ppm and a maximum grade of 811 ppm Lithium – outstanding numbers for lithium extraction.
• Strategic Location: Located in the southeast of Mongolia, Baavhai Uul is situated in an infrastructure-rich region, and is 24 kilometres away from the Chinese border, offering quick, easy access to the world’s largest consumer of lithium. China is also host to the majority of the world’s lithium processing capacity.
• Long-term Lithium Demand: Driven by skyrocketing electric vehicle (EV) battery demand, the growth in demand for lithium compounds is expected to increase at outsized global rates moving forward.

Investment Highlights

• Strong location and geological advantage over South American producers.
• Low cost and year-round operating environment.
• Infrastructure rich location in Mongolia
• Only 30 kilometres by road to the Mongolia-China border crossing.
• Mongolia is set to become a major player in the lithium sector.
• A large number of high-capacity lithium battery factories in China.
• And, battery manufacturing nations Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are all nearby.

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The Bottom Line

800 years ago, hordes of fearless and fearsome warrior horsemen descended from the Mongolian steppes and at its height, the vastness of the Empire of Genghis Khan exceeded that of even the Romans – at its peak, it covered some 9 million square miles (23 million square kilometres) of territory, making it the largest contiguous land empire in world history.

Today, it is an economic conquest that is measured by the peace and prosperity of its citizens and its wealth. Traditionally, Mongolia’s economy has been based on agriculture and livestock, and is just beginning to expand beyond that. Its economy and financial system have also been crippled by decades of stagnant Soviet-style economic centralization. In August and September 1999, the economy suffered from a temporary Russian ban on exports of oil and oil products.

What does an investor get from investing in an early-stage junior explorer like ION Energy? Actually, quite a bit.

Today, because of major mining developments like the Baavhai Uul Lithium Brine Project, there’s never been a more exciting and opportune time for investors in the battery metals sectors, specifically lithium exploration, to seek out real value and opportunity.

It’s also a time for investors to stay keenly aware of forward-thinking, first-movers in the lithium exploration and mining space like ION Energy.


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For more information on the Company, visit ionenergy.ca.


FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.