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Premier1 Lithium
Overview
Premier1 Lithium (ASX:PLC) is an Australian company focused on lithium exploration in Western Australia. The company was formed following the restructuring of SensOre. SensOre demerged its non-core software and AI technology business and the remaining company was rebranded as Premier1 Lithium to focus on the lithium business.
Premier1 employs artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to choose its lithium prospects. Through a data-driven approach, the company can strategically allocate resources to prioritize the most promising targets.
The company’s portfolio comprises one wholly-owned project and three other projects with joint venture (JV) partners. The wholly owned Abbotts North project is its flagship asset, with the Buttamiah Prospect as the primary area of focus. The Buttamiah Prospect is characterized by lithium-bearing pegmatite occurrences and has returned assays up to 1.25 percent lithium oxide at the surface.
The other three JV projects are: 1) Yalgoo and Yalgoo West Project, with JV partners Venture Minerals and Firetail; 2) Montague Project, with JV partner Gateway Mining; and 3) Gecko North Project, with JV partner LithGold.
Western Australia represents one of the best jurisdictions for lithium exploration. The state offers a stable investment environment supported by a transparent regulatory system, access to export markets, and minimal barriers to international trade. Archean cratons in the region are the most prospective and represent some of the world’s largest lithium-bearing pegmatite deposits. The company’s Abbotts North Project is in the Archean cratons making it a sought-after lithium asset.
According to the Office of the Chief Economist within the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Western Australia is projected to possess around 10 percent of the global lithium hydroxide refining capacity by 2024. That projection is expected to further increase to over 20 percent of the global lithium refining capacity by 2028.
Lithium as a mineral is in great focus, given its application in batteries for electric vehicles. It represents the most in-demand metal required for the energy transition. The global shift away from fossil fuels is ongoing, which should fuel demand for lithium in the next decade. According to a report by the International Energy Agency, global battery and minerals supply chains must expand by 10 times to meet the demand in 2030. This should benefit lithium which remains a key battery ingredient.
Projections by mining giant Albemarle suggest that lithium demand will reach 3.7 million tons by 2030 driven by favorable government policies in many countries aimed at phasing out new internal combustion engine car sales. As the global demand for lithium continues to expand, Premier1’s exploration and development initiatives are well-timed, providing investors with an opportunity to participate in the swiftly growing lithium market.
Company Highlights
- Premier1 Lithium is focused on lithium exploration in Western Australia, one of the best jurisdictions in the world for hard rock lithium.
- The company was formed following the restructuring of SensOre Limited. SensOre demerged its non-core software and AI technology business, and the remaining company was rebranded as Premier1 Lithium to focus on the lithium business.
- The company holds a pipeline of promising lithium projects led by its wholly owned flagship project, Abbotts North, and three joint venture projects – Yalgoo and Yalgoo West, Montague and Gecko North.
- The company’s lithium prospects are selected using AI and machine learning. This data-driven approach allows Premier1 to prioritize resource allocation toward the most prospective targets.
- Premier1 is on track to commence a 2,000-meter RC drilling program at Abbotts North in February 2024. All the environmental and heritage approvals required for the drilling program have been received.
- The focus of the drilling program is on the Buttamiah Prospect within the Abbotts North Project, which is characterized by lithium-bearing pegmatite occurrences and has returned assays up to 1.25 percent lithium oxide at the surface.
- In addition to Abbotts North, Premier1 has planned extensive exploration work at its JV projects. This includes pegmatite mapping and sampling, as well as soil and auger geochemistry to delineate drill targets at Montague and Yalgoo beginning the second half of 2024.
- Premier1 Lithium offers investors an attractive way to benefit from the growing demand for lithium.
Key Projects
Abbotts North Project
Abbotts North is the company’s 100 percent-owned flagship lithium project. This project is situated in the Abbotts Greenstone Belt region, which has not been previously explored for lithium. The Buttamiah prospect, the key target area within the Abbotts North, has shown confirmed pegmatite occurrences that yield up to 1.25 percent lithium oxide at the surface.
Several parallel lithium-bearing pegmatites have been mapped and sampled at the Buttamiah Prospect. The individual pegmatites exhibit an average width ranging from 2 meters to 3 meters and can be followed along a strike length of up to 350 meters. The main Buttamiah Prospect extends over a total area of 1.5 kilometers.
Premier1 is on track to commence a 2,000-metre RC drilling program in February 2024, designed to test the depth and extent of the mineralized pegmatite field at the Buttamiah Prospect. All the environmental and heritage approvals required for the drilling program have been received.
Several additional priority targets have been identified at the Abbotts North Project following the completion of the initial phase of field mapping, rock chip sampling and soil geochemistry in December 2023. The soil survey results unveiled areas of interest with a geochemical structure similar to those observed over the primary Buttamiah Prospect. Subsequent fieldwork will be undertaken to evaluate these newly identified priority targets and plan for additional heritage clearance surveys.
Yalgoo and Yalgoo West Project
Yalgoo and Yalgoo West are key projects in the company’s lithium portfolio. AI and machine learning were used to identify these projects as having significant potential for lithium. These assets are part of the Greenstone Belt region, which is underexplored. The greenstone belt is characterized by multiple phases of granitic intrusions, including known LCT pegmatites.
Premier1 can earn up to 70 percent of the lithium rights for the Yalgoo project from Venture Minerals and 80 percent of mineral rights (except rare earth elements) from Firetail Resources for the Yalgoo West project.
The land access approvals are in place and the company is planning extensive fieldwork, including pegmatite sampling, soil and auger geochemistry, to identify targets for initial drilling beginning H2 2024.
Montague Project
Montague project, located within the Greenstone Belt, is a joint venture between Premier1 and Gateway Mining. Premier1 can earn up to 80 percent interest in the JV by meeting certain expenditure criteria. Premier1 has selected tenements within the Montague project for lithium, using AI and machine learning.
The project comprises historical mining leases and is situated in proximity to geological formations that indicate the presence of lithium-bearing pegmatites.
Land access approvals are in place for the project and the next steps include pegmatite mapping and sampling, and soil geochemistry, which will be followed by drilling in H2 2024.
Gecko North Project
Gecko North project is a joint venture between Premier1 and LithGold Minerals. The company used AI and machine learning to generate lithium targets at Gecko North. Premier1 can earn up to 80 percent interest in this JV project. This includes earning 51 percent interest by spending $2.5 million over four years, and an additional 29 percent interest by completing a bankable feasibility study.
Land access approvals for this project are in place and the next steps include extending soil geochemistry and shallow drilling to test soil anomaly in H1 of 2024.
Management Team
Richard Taylor – Executive Director and CEO
Richard Taylor is a qualified lawyer and holds an MBA from Cambridge University and a master’s degree in law from ANU. He has more than 15 years of experience and has held several senior leadership roles in the resource sector. Previously, he has worked with Terramin Australia, Mineral Deposits, PanAust, MMG, and Oxiana. His experience spans various domains including strategy, business development and governance.
Anja Ehser - Non-Executive Director
Anja Ehser is a geologist with over 15 years of experience in the mineral exploration sector in Europe, and Canada, focusing on base, precious and battery metals. She has held several senior leadership roles within the Deutsche Rohstoff Group and its subsidiaries.
Nicholas Limb – Non-Executive Chairman
Nicholas Limb is a professional geoscientist. He has held senior-level positions in various ASX-listed companies in the gold, mineral sands, and oil and gas sectors. He has rich experience in multiple domains including finance, risk and governance.
This article was written in collaboration with Couloir Capital.
Forward Water Technologies
Overview
Forward Water Technologies (TSXV:FWTC) is helping lithium mining companies and other industries reduce their environmental impact through its innovative wastewater treatment technology that enables industrial operations to reduce liquid waste volume by up to 95 percent.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings continue to be a key business strategy for organizations as they impact public perception and partnership possibilities. For water-intensive industries, such as mining, sustainable wastewater management is critical.
Transformative wastewater technologies are critical for both businesses and the world’s population. In fact, unless sufficient progress is achieved, UNICEF and WHO estimate that 1.6 billion people will be without access to safe drinking water by 2030, and 2.8 billion will be without access to safe sanitation and hygiene. Water treatment technologies can disrupt current trends and improve global access to safe drinking water.
Through its Forward Osmosis (FO) technology, Forward Water is providing an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional wastewater disposal. Traditionally, wastewater disposal requires transporting untreated wastewater for deep well disposal or high-intensity thermal treatment.
Forward Water’s FO system is installed at the client site, and wastewater is treated to reduce waste volume and produce valuable clean water for reuse in the manufacturing process. Then, the significantly reduced volume of wastewater is transported and disposed of, significantly saving on transportation and disposal costs.
The FO technology targets three massive sectors: industrial wastewater, mining and food manufacturing. Forward Water’s unique and patented FO technology achieves high-rate water extraction within a low-energy continuous process. The process reduces waste and allows up to 95 percent water recovery, ready for reuse.
Forward Water’s Li-FO™ technology is ideal for lithium-brine mining operations, allowing mines to “fine tune” brine sources to improve concentration by up to 20 times. This results in improved recovery and makes lower-concentration brines economically viable. Forward Water is currently embarking on an early development testing project to further evaluate and refine the technology’s viability in lithium mining.
In 2023, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Forward Water Technologies Inc., licensed specific intellectual property from FUJIFILM Corporation to solidify the protection of its water treatment technology platform.
CleanTech Lithium (AIM:CTL,Frankfurt:T2N,OTC:CTLHF) has contracted FWT to provide advisory services for the support and development of CleanTech Lithium's direct lithium extraction (DLE) process in Chile. The collaboration will use FWT’s industrial forward osmosis system in the hyper-concentrating of CleanTech Lithium's eluate and its conversion into battery-grade lithium carbonate through Conductive Energy's DLE process.
Howie Honeyman, CEO, explained in an interview how the company’s technology can improve lithium mining operations. “A lot of lithium being mined today around the world is coming from underground aquifers that store the lithium brine. The challenge is that the lithium is surrounded by other minerals and salts, requiring chemical ‘tweezers’ to pluck out that lithium. What we can do is, at multiple places in that process, we can concentrate that lithium-containing water stream, which makes it far easier for these miners to handle the volumes they need to extract that lithium.”
An experienced management team with technical expertise leads the company towards further refining and deploying its technology. The team includes experts in materials science, chemistry and engineering. Additional experts in corporate administration and financing round out the leadership team to lead the company toward its goals.
Company Highlights
- Forward Water Technologies has developed a patented wastewater treatment technology that reduces wastewater volume and improves reusability across multiple industries, including mining and food manufacturing.
- The company’s Forward Osmosis (FO) technology disrupts the traditional method of wastewater disposal by reducing the amount of waste that must be transported and disposed of, directly reducing costs.
- The FO technology also improves water reusability by up to 95 percent, reducing the expense of importing water for industrial processes.
- The Forward Water Technologies Li-FO™ process is applicable in the lithium mining sector by improving concentration by up to 20 times, allowing organizations to improve extraction efficiency.
- The company has partnered with a lithium-brine extraction operation to evaluate its Li-FO™ technology.
- Forward Water Technologies is in early negotiations to deliver an FWTC forward osmosis pilot system on-site in Chile to support a customer's lithium extraction process.
- Forward Water Technologies has licensed specific intellectual property from FUJIFILM Corporation to solidify the protection of its water treatment technology platform.
- The company has been contracted by CleanTech Lithium to provide advisory services for the support and development of CleanTech Lithium's direct lithium extraction processes in Chile.
- An experienced management team with a blend of relevant technical expertise leads the company toward refining and marketing its technology.
Key Project
Forward Osmosis Water Treatment
Forward Osmosis is a naturally occurring process in which water is spontaneously drawn across a membrane when one solution is higher in salt concentration than the other. The difference in salinity, known as the osmotic gradient, creates a low-energy water treatment process.
Forward Water Technologies has leveraged the naturally occurring process to innovate its patented, three-step FO technology, enabling a 95 percent wastewater reduction and 95 percent water recovery.
Project Highlights:
- Patented Three-Step Process: Forward Water Technologies FO process achieves low-energy and high-rate water extraction with a unique three-step design:
- Water Extraction: Water is drawn across the FO membrane into a salt draw solution. The combination of the patented draw solution and unique membrane “locks” the draw solution on one side of the membrane, creating a true closed-loop process.
- Water/Salt Separation: Next, a switchable water salt (SWS) achieves water/salt separation as low-grade heat is applied, and it phases from liquid to gas. As the gas leaves the solution, clean water is left behind. The energy necessary for this step is often found in many facilities in the form of waste heat.
- Salt Draw Reconcentration: Finally, as the gas leaves the solution, it is captured within the closed-loop system and is passively cooled, causing it to phase back into liquid form as an SWS. The SWS liquid is collected and recycled back to the front of the membranes in the water extraction step, creating a continuous process.
- Widely Applicable Water Treatment: The low-energy process allows organizations across several industries to improve water reclamation and reduce wastewater by up to 95 percent. Additionally, the process allows for up to 20 times concentration, making the process amenable to lithium-brine extraction and other potential applications.
- Significant Cost Savings: The primary value proposition for the FO process is cost reduction in wastewater transportation and disposal. With the process in place, more water is reclaimed for reuse in manufacturing, which reduces the raw volume of wastewater that must be transported and disposed of.
Management Team
Howie Honeyman - Chief Executive Officer and President
Dr. Howie Honeyman has 20 years of experience commercializing new technologies at Xerox, Cabot, E Ink, Natrix Separations and as former CTO of GreenCentre Canada. Honeyman commercialized high-capacity, high-throughput membranes for bioprocessing as SVP of Natrix Separations, which has since been acquired by Millipore-Sigma. Since 2015, Honeyman has been leading Forward Water to become a premier wastewater treatment solution. Honeyman is also an inventor of record on over 50 US patents and holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of Toronto.
Michael Willetts - Chief Financial Officer
Michael Willetts has over 25 years in financial leadership roles primarily in manufacturing, from large multinational businesses to startups, both public and private. He previously worked as an engineer in the automotive industry before entering into finance at Ford Motor Company. Willets went on to progressively larger finance roles in several international automotive suppliers (Textron, GKN, DSM) and Canadian manufacturers (Armtec, Stronach International, AirBoss of America). Willetts is currently providing fractional CFO services through WD Numeric Corporate Services in the manufacturing, SaaS and cannabis industries. Willetts graduated with a BASc, BComm and MBA from the University of Windsor.
Wayne Maddever - Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Wayne Maddever received his Ph.D. in materials science engineering from the University of Toronto. Since 1985, he has held senior executive management positions with technically based businesses in start-up, turnaround or acquisition situations where his skills in change management have brought considerable success in the commercialization of new technologies. His experience in both private and public companies, domestically and internationally, spans a broad variety of industries, including bio and advanced materials, precision manufacturing, recycling, waste-to-energy and medical devices. He holds a number of patents in several fields. He is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. In addition to his duties as COO of Forward Water, he is currently portfolio manager at Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, one of the major shareholders of Forward Water.
Grant Thornley - VP Engineering Solution Sales
Grant Thornley is a business strategist with more than 25 years of experience. He has developed and grown international water/wastewater markets through innovative growth hacking techniques and processes, synergized with product development and positioning, data analytics and acceleration of go-to-market strategies through alliances and partnerships. Having expertise in chemical, mechanical and biological treatment processes as well as designing hundreds of municipal and industrial applications, Thornley brings a knowledge-to-action approach to helping clients solve problems and realize new opportunities in water reuse, energy conservation and CO2 reduction.
Leonard Seed - Director of Engineering & Operations
Leonard Seed has over 18 years of experience developing and commercializing new water and wastewater treatment technologies, primarily in a start-up environment. Seed is named as an inventor on over seven patents and has authored several publications. Seed is a professional engineer and has an MSc in environmental engineering from the University of Guelph. Leonard holds inventorship on seven US patents and is an instructor at Mohawk College teaching aspects of water treatment technologies and leading research efforts on forward osmosis.
Philip Jessop - Executive Research Director
Dr. Philip Jessop is a professor and Canada Research Chair of Green Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He also serves as the technical director of GreenCentre Canada and executive research director at Forward Water Technologies. After his Ph.D. (British Columbia, 1991) and a postdoctoral appointment (Toronto, 1992), he became a contract researcher in Japan working for R. Noyori (Nobel Prize 2001). As a professor at the University of California-Davis (1996-2003) and since then at Queen’s, he has studied green solvents and the chemistry of carbon dioxide. Distinctions include the NSERC Polanyi Award (2008), Killam Research Fellowship (2010), Canadian Green Chemistry & Engineering Award (2012), Eni Award (2013), Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (2013), a Canada Research Chair Tier 1 (2013 to 2020), and the NSERC Brockhouse Prize (2019). He serves as chair of the editorial board for the journal Green Chemistry, has chaired three international conferences, and helped create GreenCentre Canada, a national center of excellence for the commercialization of green chemistry technologies. Forward Water is a spin-off company based on Dr. Jessop’s switchable solvents.
Quarterly Activities Report for the Period Ended 31 March 2024
Highlights
Solonópole Project, Ceará, Brazil
- Anomalous lithium values above 100 ppm (and up to 631 ppm) found in 383 soil samples within existing and new target areas.
- Integration and interpretation of these soil sample results with data from geophysics, geological mapping (138 line-km), trenching and RC drilling (~2,000m) further enhance prospectivity of existing and new targets.
- Combined datasets confirmed several swarms of pegmatite bodies striking in a NE-SW and E-W directions and identified new high priority areas.
- Nira interpreted to be the most prospective new target, with 180 soil samples of >100 ppm Li and as high as 524 ppm Li covering an area of at least 1km2.
- Nira also features 17 pegmatite outcrops with average widths of up to 30 meters and strike lengths from 200m to 600m.
- Planning for the next follow-up drilling campaign is underway.
Napperby Project, Northern Territory, Australia
- Oceana’s Napperby Project covers some of Arunta Province’s hottest granites plutons, the Wangala Granite (uranium) and Ennugan Mountains Granite (uranium/thorium).
- Both granite plutons show outstanding uranium/thorium ratios and are almost fully encapsulated within Napperby’s EL32836 and ELA32841.
- Follow-up exploration activities will target uranium and Rare Earth Elements (REEs) in parallel with Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum (LCT) pegmatites.
Corporate
- Experienced geologist and mining executive, Aidan Platel, appointed as non- executive director.
- Brazilian-based geologist, Mike Sousa, appointed as Exploration Manager and Competent Person.
- The Company remains well-funded with cash at 31 March of ~$2.67m.
OPERATIONS
Solonópole Project, Ceará State, Brazil
The Solonópole Project area is located in the state of Ceará, north-eastern Brazil and consists of ten (10) exploration permits covering approximately 124km2 (Figure 1), owned by Oceana’s subsidiary Ceará Litio. The project is approximately three to four hours by road from the state capital Fortaleza and deep-water port of Pecém, and is well serviced by sealed highways and high voltage electricity.
Figure 1: Solonópole Project permits and targets drilled in May – June 2023 (red dots)
Large-Scale Soil Sampling and Geological Mapping at Solonópole Lithium Project
The large-scale infill soil sampling program that commenced in March 2023 continued over the project area (Figure 2). The optimized sampling grids are along 200m spaced lines with 25m sampling stations, aligned north south to cut across all typical pegmatite strike directions in this area.
As at 31 March 2024, over 10,300 soil samples had been collected from Solonópole and 8,741 soil samples had been analysed by X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) for Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum (LCT) pathfinders, of which 1,908 soil samples have lab results validated by Oceana´s internal QA/QC. Anomalous lithium values above 100 ppm and up to 631 ppm were found in 383 soil samples within existing and new target areas.
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This article includes content from Oceana Lithium, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.
Premier1 Lithium Investor Kit
- Corporate info
- Insights
- Growth strategies
- Upcoming projects