Overview
The increasing popularity of electric vehicles and the green energy movement has disrupted the transportation and power industry entirely. By 2050, over 17 countries announced 100 percent zero-emission vehicle targets or goals to phase out internal combustion engines vehicles.
Seeing these unprecedented trends in growth across the electric vehicle market means the demand for key raw materials used in the lithium-ion batteries needed to power these technological innovations could experience significant parallel growth. As prices for these raw commodities grow, market researchers predict more money investment opportunities coming into the sector. Especially for royalty companies with widespread exposure across the market, the investment upside could be significantly advantageous.
Electric Royalties Ltd. (TSXV:ELEC) is a royalty company focused on building a premium portfolio that takes advantage of the demand for a wide range of commodities and critical metals like lithium, vanadium, manganese, tin, graphite, zinc, cobalt, nickel and copper. Focusing on these vital elements leverages the growing demand and global drive toward electrification across virtually all sectors, including transportation, rechargeable batteries, large-scale energy storage, renewable energy generation and more.
As a royalty company, Electric Royalties does not operate mines nor needs large and highly specialized teams to carry on their operations. Likewise, having a robust commodity portfolio helps to diversify investment and mitigate risk for investors and shareholders while leveraging exploration upside, revenue-driven business modelling and more. It currently has a growing portfolio of 17 royalties on assets located primarily in North America and Australia..
The company operates a two-tier approach to royalty acquisition. It has a strategic global focus for projects in politically stable jurisdictions with an emphasis on districts with strong legal and mining frameworks. Additionally, Electric Royalties focuses on lifelong assets with outstanding exploration potential, which leverage near-term production potential, advanced staging, multiple commodity cycles, resource upgrades and producing opportunities.
Unlike other royalty companies, Electric Royalties has an exceptionally robust nine commodity portfolio and a top management team that understands the ins and outs of how the royalty game works. “We’re creating a new royalty where we make sure it’s gross revenue, covers the whole deposit and it’s drafted by us. At this point in time, we do this for a living. Ultimately, you’re going in, and you’re creating and adding some value to a group,” commented Electric Royalties CEO and director Brendan Yurik.
In July 2021, the company announced that it closed a private placement consisting of five million units of the company issued for gross proceeds of CAD$2 million. Each unit consists of one common share of Electric Royalties plus one common share purchase warrant. Completion of the private placement is subject to regulatory approval but advances the company’s plans for additional strategic royalty acquisition.
Electric Royalties Ltd.’s management team is an experienced group of executives and advisors with proven track records of success across multiple related industries like mining, finance and more. Together, their years of expertise primes the company for significant growth in line with the exponential growth forecasted in the demand for sustainable electrification globally.
Electric Royalties’ Company Highlights
- Electric Royalties is a royalty company established to take advantage of the demand for a wide range of metal commodities, which benefit from the drive toward electrification of a variety of consumer products and industries like transportation, battery development and energy.
- The company is generating revenue from a growing portfolio of 17 royalties focusing predominantly on acquiring royalties on advanced stage and operating projects to build a diversified portfolio in politically stable jurisdictions.
- Market research expects electric vehicle sales, battery production and renewable energy generation to increase significantly over the next several years. Demand for valuable commodities necessary for the production of electric vehicles is slated to grow with these trends.
- Electric Royalties leverages a unique opportunity to invest in and acquire royalties over highly prospective mines and projects that host widespread mineralization of commodities like zinc, lithium, copper, nickel, tin, manganese, vanadium, graphite and cobalt.
- The company’s management team brings together an experienced team with decades of expertise in finance, mining, business development and more.
- Electric Royalties closes two previously announced royalty purchase and sale agreements to acquire, in the aggregate, a 1 percent Net Smelter Royalty (the “1 percent NSR”) on licenses comprising core strategic tenure at the Cancet Lithium Project situated in Quebec, Canada.
Key Royalties
Middle Tennessee Zinc Mine Royalty
This producing zinc asset hosts levels of annual production hovering 50,000 tons of zinc concentrate across a 15 year mine year.
Middle Tennessee zinc mines have produced over 2.7 billion pounds of zinc for over 50 years. The strategically positioned zinc mine leverages close proximity and association with Trafigura’s Clarksville smelter, the only primary zinc producer in the US.
Authier Lithium Royalty
The Authier Lithium is a 0.5 percent gross revenue royalty and the project sits in close proximity to the only producing lithium mine in Canada about 45 kilometers northwest of Val d’Or and is operated by Sayona Lithium. It stands as a simple, near-surface deposit with resources defined in one spodumene-bearing pegmatite based on 31,000 metres of diamond drilling. Authier also leverages excellent infrastructure, including existing mining support services, environmentally-friendly low-cost hydroelectric power, gas and road networks.
Sayona Mining Limited completed a revised definitive feasibility study in November 2019 under JORC. Sayona also has a large strategic investment by Piedmont Lithium, who is the only lithium company to have an offtake agreement with Tesla. Sayona Mining has recently completed the acquisition of the Canada Lithium Mine in partnership with Piedmont Lithium and plans to ramp up production at the mine using ore from the Authier project with planned production preliminarily set for 2023.
Graphmada Graphite Royalty
The near-production Graphmada Large Flake Graphite Mining Complex is located in Eastern Madagascar and was in continuous production for 30 months prior to being placed in care and maintenance due to Covid related restrictions put in place at the start of 2020. The operator Bass Metals has been using the down time to look at an expanded production case set to be released in the near future andrecently increased its mineral resource by 41% to 20.2 million tonnes (Mt) of >90% large flake graphite. All mining and processing infrastructure, including roads, bridges, power, camp, tailings dams are in place, along with 40-year mining permits and 20-year landholder agreements. The complex sits adjacent to the main national highway and is110km to the country’s only deep-water port at Toamasina. The royalty is a 2.5 percent gross revenue royalty.
Bissett Creek Graphite Royalty
The Bissett Creek property sits between Ottawa and North Bay in Ontario, Canada. The feasibility stage asset has a potential annual production level of 33,200 tons with a mine life of approximately 21 years at a US$1,800 revenue per ton ratio.
Bissett Creek hosts open pit mining potential and has already seen significant bulk sampling, pilot plant testing and recoveries of over 92.4 percent graphite. The next steps include further exploration and production expansion of some of the highest large flake yields reported from any graphite project globally.
Mont Sorcier Vanadium Royalty
The Mont Sorcier property hosts a large-high-quality Iron resource with significant and extractable Vanadium in a top-tier mining jurisdiction. The one percent gross revenue royalty has an estimated 4.8 million ton iron annual production potential at 65 percent iron and 0.6 percent vanadium. The potential IRR is 33.8 percent.
Exceptionally low titanium content makes the deposit unique to other iron-titanium-vanadium deposits around the world. Low titanium in the deposit allows the iron ore and vanadium processing directly through a blast furnace for potential lower-cost operations and open-pit mining with a life of mine strip ratio of 0.89.
Glencore has entered into a long-term arrangement to support the development of the Mont Sorcier project and is assisting with raising capital to finalize feasibility studies.
Battery Hill Manganese Royalty
Battery Hill is a historic resource that spans 1,228 hectares and leverages fast-tracked feasibility study stage potential. Kemetco currently has operations to develop and commercialize a flow sheet to produce a battery-grade manganese product for the growing electric vehicle and energy storage industries. The property leverages great highway access and transmission lines. Electric Royalties has early-mover potential with Battery Hill as there are no producing manganese mines in North America.
Battery Hill project mineral resource estimate consists of 34.86 million tonnes of Measured and Indicated mineral resources grading 6.42% Mn, plus an additional 25.91 million tonnes of Inferred mineral resources grading 6.66% Mn utilizing a 2.5% Mn cut-off grade. In partnership with Kemetco, they have done extensive metallurgical testing achieving a product with 99.95 percent purity, also with very low contaminants, was considered a transformational achievement as this demonstrated that Manganese X Energy’s Battery Hill manganese could be compliant and suitable for battery manufacturing use in EVs, energy storage and other high-tech applications. A PEA is currently underway.
Seymour Lake Lithium Royalty
Seymour Lake is a 1.5 percent net smelter royalty that covers 16,654 hectares of lithium mineralization hosted in spodumene-bearing pegmatite sills with a thickness of more than 26 meters. Electric Royalties has exercised an AUD$8.7 million option and established a joint venture to progress Seymour Lake and other strategically located lithium projects. The property also has excellent road access near the main CN rail line.
The main pegmatite at the North Aubry prospect is 250 meters wide and 300 meters long and remains open along strike and at depth. Strategic positioning near pegmatites helps to potentially reduce transport costs and leverage easier access to high-quality mineralization in future mining endeavors. Its over 6.58 million ton measured and indicated lithium resource and potential 24,000tpa annual production level are exciting attributes of this royalty for the company to take advantage of.
Millennium Cobalt Royalty
The Australian-based cobalt-copper depository stands open for expansion and sits in the well-established mining district of Mount Isa, Qld. Electric Royalties recently signed an option for Metal Bank Ltd. to earn in and Joint Venture the project.
The royalty leverages a historic resource of inferred 3.1 million tonnes of mineralization at 0.14 percent cobalt, 0.35 percent copper and 0.12 gold grades. A 2018 drill program confirmed connective high-grade cobalt zones and wide cobalt zones with assay results indicating metal grades exceeding prior expectations. Preliminary metallurgical studies have also demonstrated the potential to recover an excess of 91 percent of the cobalt and copper.
Bouvier & Chubb Lithium Royalties
These highly prospective projects sit within the Preissac-Lacorne plutonic complex of the prolific Abitibi Greenstone Belt, the complex forming excellent surrounding mining opportunities for lithium mineralization. The plutonic complex also generated the Quebec Lithium project located 60 kilometers north of Val dOr, Quebec. The royalties stand at two percent gross revenue.
Yalbra Graaphite Royalty
The Yalbra Graphite Project is located 250km North West of Meekatharra and 280km East of Carnavon, Western Australia, and covers an area of 22km². The property has been systematically explored for graphite mineralisation, undertaking mapping, a heli-VTEM survey, several rounds of drilling, petrology, two resource estimates and metallurgy test work. The drilling program resulted in some of the highest grade x thickness graphite drill intercepts reported in Australia.
Glassville Manganese Royalty
The Glassville project comprises 15 claims close to the Battery Hill project. The pre-production asset has a historical resource of over 453,000 manganese mineralization at 11 percent manganese and 8.45 percent iron grades to a depth of 80 meters.
Mount Dorothy Cobalt & Cobalt Ridge Royalties
The 0.5 percent gross revenue royalties include exploration projects located near the Millenium cobalt project, which hosts highly prospective high-quality cobalt, copper and gold mineralization. The royalties operate early-mover advantages and excellent exploration potential as much of the area remains under-explored and limitedly tested.
Electric Royalties’ Management & Board of Directors
Brendan Yurik – CEO & Director
Brendan Yurik is the founder and CEO of Evenor Investments Ltd, a financial advisory group to junior mining companies for alternative financing, debt, equity and M&A with experience on over CAD$2 billion in mining financing transactions throughout his career. He has prior global experience as a research analyst as well as in business development and mining financial advisory roles with Endeavour Financial, Cambrian Mining Finance Ltd, Northern Vertex Mining Corp. and King & Bay West Management Corp.
Luqman Khan – CPA, CGA, CFO
Luqman Khan is the CFO of RE Royalties Ltd, a renewable energy royalty company, involved in the acquisition of 86 royalties to date. He has been a financial reporting executive with over 20 years of professional experience in accountancy and business management. Additionally, Khan has served as CFO for several publicly listed TSX-V resource companies and previously with Ernst and Young in their assurance practice.
David Gaunt P.GEO – Chief Geo-Scientist
David is an economic geologist specializing in project assessment and resource estimation. His experience spans projects worldwide and includes roles with senior mining companies and junior exploration companies. He is a co-recipient of the PDAC’s Thayer Lindsley International Discovery Award.
Marchand Snyman CA – Chairman
Co-founder and Chairman of RE Royalties Ltd, a renewable energy royalty company, involved in the acquisition of 84 royalties to date. Over 25 years senior executive experience in corporate finance and mining with a global merger, financing, acquisition and divestiture track record of more than 50 transactions.
Craig Lindsay MBA, CFA – Director
Founder and CEO of Otis Gold Corp (TSXV: OOO) and a current director of VR Resources Ltd. (TSXV: VRR), Alianza Minerals Ltd. (TSXV: ANZ) and Philippine Metals Inc. (TSXV: PHI). Prior to Otis, was Founder and CEO of Magnum Uranium Corp and led its sale to Energy Fuels Inc. (TSX: EFR). In excess of 25 years of experience in corporate finance, venture capital and public company management.
Robert Schafer P.GEO – Director
Co-founding director of International Royalty Corp (sold for $800m to Royal Gold). More than 30 years of experience working internationally in business development roles with major and junior mining companies including formerly representing as Chairman of PDAC. Serves as a director of a number of public resource companies.
