Overview
Victory Battery Metals (CSE:VR,FWB:VR61,OTCPINK:VRCFF) is a Vancouver-based junior mining and exploration company operating primarily out of North America. The company recently underwent restructuring and rebranding to pivot to battery metals, recognizing the significant opportunity brought about by the global efforts toward electrification and decarbonization.
As the push for clean energy and the global transition to net-zero continue to ramp up, lithium has never been more important. The burgeoning electric vehicle market exemplifies this, with sales of electric cars topping 6.6 million in 2021 and over 10 million in 2022. On the plus side, this explosive market growth will, according to the International Energy Agency, eliminate the need for roughly 5 million barrels of oil per year by 2030.
Victory’s flagship project, Smokey Lithium, has the distinction of being situated very close to the only lithium-producing silver mine in North America. In addition to Smokey Lithium, Victory maintains five other projects: Stingray Lithium Array in James Bay, Quebec; Georgia Lake Lithium property, Ontario; Tahlo Lake, in the Babine Copper-Gold Porphyry District, British Columbia; Saguenay Nickel Project, Quebec; and Black Diablo Copper and Manganese in Nevada.
These projects’ strategic locations in mining-friendly and infrastructure-ready jurisdictions position Victory to not only explore new sources of critical battery metals required to meet the growing demand, but also help disrupt the currently unbalanced supply chain, with China dominating roughly 70 percent of global lithium production despite the fact it only supplies 13 percent of the world's lithium.
Given China's questionable mining practices and propensity for leveraging the global supply chain as a political weapon, the status quo is far from ideal. Unsurprisingly, many countries — Canada and the United States among them — are investing heavily into establishing a domestic lithium supply chain. Victory Battery Metals is ideally positioned to take advantage of these investment efforts.
Company Highlights
- Recently completed a successful private placement for $2 million, and holds several million dollars in treasury.
- Smokey Lithium flagship project operates out of Nevada, one of the most mining-friendly jurisdictions in North America.
- Victory's primary focus is on bridging the considerable gap between supply and demand, and is benefitting considerably from federal mandates around lithium and critical battery metals production in both Canada and the United States.
- Work programs are planned for all major assets within the next twelve months.
- Maintains an incredibly diverse mining portfolio primarily geared towards the needs of the growing electric vehicle market. However, its assets also include precious metals such as gold and silver.
- Victory is actively working to identify opportunities in regions conducive to mining and geographic locations suited to year-round exploration and development.
Key Projects
Smokey Lithium Project
Located 20 miles north of Clayton Valley and 20 miles west of American Lithium's flagship TLC Project, the Smokey Clay Lithium Project resides in one of North America's most prolific lithium regions. Esmeralda County is home to multiple large-tonnage lithium clay deposits with acceptable grades over 900 parts per million (ppm). To that end, there are countless other projects in various stages of exploration and development throughout the area and multiple mining companies have sought to stake a claim here, including Noram, Cypress, Spearmint and Enertopia.
The Smokey Lithium Project is contiguous and adjacent to Jindalee Resources' (ASX:JRL) rich Clayton North deposit. With this in mind, Victory suspected that its property might display similar geology, and executed an extensive drilling program in 2022, which confirmed the presence of significant lithium mineralization across thick layers of underlying claystone.
This program allowed Victory to generate accurate cross-sections, geologic maps and subsurface models, with the company then choosing to acquire additional property south of its existing holdings. A spring drilling program that concluded in May 2023 saw Victory significantly expand its estimates of both the area and thickness of Smokey Lithium's targeted claystone sequences. With this program's conclusion, the company also announced the project had officially moved from early-stage to advanced stage.
Project Highlights:
- Proven Regulatory Feasibility: Situated in a very mining-friendly jurisdiction, Smokey Lithium also operates within a region that is home to multiple ongoing exploration projects.
- Large Resource Potential: Esmeralda County, where the project is situated, has been the site of some of the most prolific and promising lithium discoveries in North America. There is every indication that this trend will continue.
- High-grade Lithium: Adjoining projects which display similar geology have demonstrated lithium grades as high as 930 ppm. The highest grade uncovered in Victory's 2022 drilling program was 1,270 ppm.
- Ideally Positioned: The project, which spans 3,625 acres, benefits from both pre-existing infrastructure and favorable geography — the ground within the project's area is primarily flat.
- Encouraging Results: Virtually every program and in-field assessment performed by Victory suggests this project has significant potential.
Stingray Array Properties
Victory's Stingray Properties consist of 347 non-contiguous claims directly adjacent to Patriot Battery Metals' (TSXV:PMET) incredibly promising Corvette Property. Because they're located in Quebec's James Bay lithium district — itself an emerging lithium hub — Victory is able to take advantage of both developing and pre-existing infrastructure within the region. The company plans to use its presence here as a springboard for further strategic acquisitions and partnerships.
Project Highlights:
- A Massive Underexplored Area: The Stingray Properties cover a total area of 17,813 hectares, most of which are either unexplored or underexplored.
- Promising Drill Results: The adjacent Corvette property shows significant potential which may extend to Victory's Stingray holdings. This includes drill intercepts of 1.65 percent lithium oxide (Li2O) and 193 ppm tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) over 159.7 meters (CV22-042), 1.22 percent Li2O and 138 ppm Ta2O5 over 152.8 meters (CV22-030), 2.13 percent Li2O and 163 ppm Ta2O5 over 86.2 meters (CV22-044) and 2.22 percent Li2O and 147 ppm Ta2O5 over 70.1 meters, including 3.01 percent Li2O and 160 ppm Ta2O5 over 40.7 meters (CV22-017).
- Favorable Geology: Properties to the east and west of Victory's claims reportedly host pegmatite dikes, and the holdings themselves are prospective for pegmatites similar to those found on Infinity Stone's Taiga and Camaro projects.
Georgia Lake Lithium Project
Located two kilometers east of Rock Tech Lithium’s (TSXV:RCK) advanced lithium project, the Georgia Lake Lithium Project benefits from both low exploration costs and a lithium-rich district. Historic mapping data from the region identified abundant S-type granites, which frequently host spodumene pegmatites. In addition, the region itself has a proven track record of economic lithium deposits dating back to the 1950s.
Having recently completed an aerial survey of the property, Victory plans to have boots on the ground in early June to assess the project's pegmatite content.
Project Highlights:
- Easy Access: The property is located roughly 3 kilometers from the Trans Canada Highway and 14 kilometers from Beardmore, a major mining hub in Northern Ontario. The project is also accessible through a recently developed network of logging roads.
- On-Site Processing: Rock Tech intends to construct a lithium ore processing facility for custom milling in the region which will support mineral processing from nearby lithium mines, Georgia Lake included. It's expected to be online in early 2024.
Tahlo Lake Project
A relatively new acquisition, Victory's Tahlo Lake property is located in the prolific Babine Copper-Gold Porphyry District in British Columbia. Covering a total of 1,688 hectares, it sits adjacent to the same north-northwest trending fault as the prolific Morrison Deposit. Victory recently confirmed this in a mag survey of the property, which showed the historic copper anomaly in the region's soil overlies a linear mag high.
Project Highlights:
- Exceptional Mineralization: A regional geochemical survey silt sample from the property's center returned over the 98th percentile for zinc and over the 96th percentile for copper relative to its surroundings. Another till sample site roughly 3 kilometers down ice from the property returned 49 parts per billion (ppb) of gold, which was also over the 98th percentile.
- Historic Potential: In addition to being situated in the Babine Copper-Gold Porphyry District, historic data from Tahlo Lake shows considerable promise. Victory is leveraging this historic data and using it to guide exploration and development.
- Anomalous Soil: Noranda, the property's original owner, at one time, reported a linear soil anomaly of 50 meters by 500 meters, trending north-northwest. Copper values within the anomaly ranged from 60 to 720 ppm.
- Existing Infrastructure: Tahlo Lake is just 8 kilometers from American Eagle Gold's (TSX:AE) NAK Property, one of several major projects within the district.
- Expanding Scope: Originally, Tahlo Lake covered only 735 hectares. Victory purchased an additional 953 hectares in February 2023 in response to highly anomalous gold in till samples both to the north and south of the original property.
Saguenay Nickel Project
Consisting of five claims over 286.4 hectares, the historic Saguenay Nickel Project is situated roughly 10 kilometers south of the town of Saguenay, Quebec. Although an assessment in 1959 showed the property to contain respectable nickel content, there have been no modern exploration efforts in the region until Victory's acquisition. The company is currently assessing the property to determine next steps.
Project Highlights:
- Favorable Geology: The Saguenay Project is underlain by mafic to ultramafic rocks commonly associated with nickel-copper-platinum group element sulfide deposits
- Historic Data: A historic grab sample returned up to 3.41 percent nickel, 1.14 percent copper, 1.2 ppm silver and 0.13 percent cobalt.
Black Diablo Copper Project
Black Diablo is still in its early stages — Victory only recently received confirmation from the Bureau of Land Management for its 16 claims. Located south of Winnemucca, the project is suspected to contain VMS copper deposits in the same belt of rocks as Nevada Sunrise Gold's Coronada VMS Project. The project is also 10 miles north of the Big Mike Copper Mine, which produced about 25 million pounds of copper in 100,000 tons of ore grading 10.5 percent copper. The Black Diablo property also hosts the Black Diablo Manganese Oxide Mine.
Project Highlights:
- Highly Prospective for Copper: According to the Mineral Resource Data System entry for the Black Diablo deposit, it contains roughly 10,000 ppm of copper. This is an unusually high amount for a deposit of this nature, which suggests that the region may contain rich deposits — and is further suggested by the presence of the Big Mike mine.
Management Team
Mark Ireton - President and CEO
David Lane - Director
Allan Levien - Director
Tatiana Kovaleva - Director
Rick Skeith - Advisor
Brian Keane - Advisor
Peter Miles - Advisor
Helgi Sigurgeirson - Geologist
Gerald Tritt - Director
Figure 1: Three drill rigs (two diamond rigs – #1 & #2 and 1 RC rig – #3) drilling out the high-grade Never Never Gold Deposit with the 2.5Mtpa Dalgaranga Process Plant in the background.
