- Ease of processing shallow, ingrained lithium provides scalability and cost advantage over other mines.
- Supply and demand location advantage: Tesla Gigafactory is 3-hours away, electricity is next door, acid rail heads a hundred miles away (natural gas), sulphuric acid (caustic soda) comes in from Wyoming.
- We will see an even bigger push towards a battery economy and a less polluting economy now that we’re seeing less air pollution from shutdown
- Maiden resource report to be completed mid-May then straight to PEA
- Four to five years of exploration and development culminating in a large resource that’s easily extracted.
Michael Kobler, CEO of American Lithium Corp. has over 35 years’ experience in natural resource acquisition, development and extraction. He joins Lara Smith, founder of Core Consultants, to discuss the outlook for Tonopah claims in Nevada, and the advantage of sourcing the metal in North America, and how their company has continued during Covid-19 shutdowns. The following is a transcript of the video:
Lara Smith: I’m here from Core Consultants, joined in my home is Michael Kobler from American Lithium joined in his home, welcome.
Michael Kobler: Thanks Lara, good to see you again.
Lara Smith:Good to see you. So American Lithium is developing the Tonopah Lithium Claims in Nevada, can you tell us about that?
Michael Kobler: The Tonopah Claims are about five miles outside of Tonopah. And what’s really unique about there is the geology, the depositional environment of the lithium. The Lithium’s actually ingrained in the clay. It hasn’t formed the mineral. It is just almost like plaster goal. It’s there to be just separated from the clay and the clay stone, and then processed.
And what’s unique about us, is that we’re a very, very large, shallow deposit that the lithium can be extracted in a very short period of time. The reason that’s important is that that does not limit us on the size of the processing. So we can go and have a hundred thousand ton a day mine if that’s what we want, because we can process the minerals, get this lithium out in a very short period of time.
Lara Smith: So that makes this project one of enormous scale or scalability rather. But how does that compare to, say a brine, which we’re all very familiar with; we are familiar with the brine assets and we’re familiar with hard rock. So how does this clay compare?
Michael Kobler: You know, the clay is actually more comparable to the hard rock assets, let’s say those big mines in Australia. We have the ability to match those mines in size, but they have an extra complication that we don’t have and that is that the ore has to be roasted. It actually has to be heated over a thousand degrees to prepare the lithium to be extracted from the mineral structure that they have in their minerals.
We don’t have to go through that step so we can match those big hard rock mines in size, but we’re cheaper or less expensive in our process costs.
Lara Smith: Okay. And how has covid19 affected your operations or your timeline, if anything?
Michael Kobler: Well, we were lucky that we managed to finish our field work in January before the full brunt of Covid. So we’re actually processing our data right now. We’ve engaged an engineering firm to do our maiden resource. So most of the work that we’re doing right now, is office work, which we would have done anyway. So I’m making some modifications to what we’re doing, but as long as we can all work remotely, we’re just working away.
Lara Smith: Yeah, and you also got a very favorable position cause you’re right next to rock near the Tesla Gigafactory and some other battery manufacturers. Right?
Michael Kobler: You know, we are absolutely blessed because first of all, the gigafactory is three hours away, so that is one of the consumers that’s going to use our material eventually.
But I think more importantly, we are within, you know, a day’s supply of all of our necessary inputs to produce the lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide minerals. Our electricity is right next door, our acid rail heads are a hundred miles away right now where we get natural gas and we get our sulphuric acid, our caustic soda comes in from Wyoming. I mean, it’s all right there.
Lara Smith: Right. And the market. Let’s talk lithium in general. There’s definitely going to be a lot of changes. A lot of companies have had to put operations on hold. The markets haven’t really been buoyant. Where do you think lithium is going to go?
Michael Kobler: Well, I think if you believe in the battery economy, you believe in lithium, right? I think the interesting thing that we’re going to see about Covid is that everybody is going to experience a lack of air pollution, right? And they’re going to see what the world is like without all of those automobiles out there and all of those big factories polluting a lot of the air.
We get to see that stark difference right now, and I think you’re going to see a big, even bigger push towards a battery economy and a less polluting economy.
Lara Smith: That’s a very interesting perspective. Everybody’s worried about the costs and how do we change over, especially with oil so low. You’re an oil guy, that was your previous company? Have you ever seen oil this low?
Michael Kobler: You know, it’s all great, you know, the oil economy. But what you’re seeing right now is, before, we all talked about, you know, what’s the benefits of the battery economy? And how do you quantify the social benefit of not having a polluted atmosphere? Very difficult. Now everybody’s going to be, now they can they, they’re saying, well, wait a minute back then look at how clear the skies were, look at how much easier it was to breathe. So now we’re going to be able to quantify that benefit. I think that’s a side benefit that I don’t think people are really talking about.
Lara Smith: Yeah. Good call. Good perspective. What’s next for American Lithium? So you’re doing office work now, and then?
Michael Kobler: Well, we’re going to finish up the maiden resource report coming out in a couple of weeks. It’s going to be one of the biggest resources in North America. It’s actually going to be the easiest to mine, the quickest to extract, and based on that and all the metallurgy testing that we’ve done, we’re going to move straight into doing a preliminary economic assessment, a PEA, right? Because we have enough data to be able to move in that direction.
Lara Smith: And you’ve got your funding until PEA level?
Michael Kobler: Yes.
Lara Smith: So that’s all in place, so you’re well on track to go….
Michael Kobler: We’re well on track, I mean, we’re a Canadian junior, right? So we will always want more money. Right. That’s just our nature.
But you know, up until now, this company has basically been funded by an internal group of investors that have consistently put in their own money. I mean, I’m heavily invested in the company and it’s exciting now to see that wait, I mean, this is not a flash in the pan. I mean, I’ve been looking for lithium in Nevada since 2016. I started with brines, I started to understand, you know, we spent millions of dollars exploring for brines. Didn’t find the brines. Learned about, learned about along the way, learned about clay stones, started to realize the benefit of the clay stones, right? So this has been four, five years of exploration and development, right?
And now it’s really, it’s great to finally culminate in a large resource that’s easily extracted.
Lara Smith: Yeah, and I understand that being in America was very important for you, you wanted to be invested in lithium in America. You didn’t want to look in South America, you didn’t want to look at some of the other assets.
Michael Kobler: You know, being in North America is critical right now. Most of the lithium, half the lithium is produced in South America, Chile, and Argentina in brines, the other half is produced in Australia. Australia essentially takes their concentrate, right, and then they ship it to China.
So literally the United States gets all of its lithium from either South America or China. We do not produce any lithium here. There’s a small operation. But that’s inconsequential. So if we’re going to move the battery economies forward here in North America, it’s critical for us to produce our own battery materials, mine it, produce it, and manufacture it here in North America.
Lara Smith: Yeah. So let’s leave it there is anything else you want to say.
Michael Kobler: No, you know what, I think for right now, thank you. And let’s stay in touch and I’ll keep you updated when the resource comes out in a few weeks.
Lara Smith: So you’ll do compliant resource in a couple of weeks time?
Michael Kobler: Yes.
Lara Smith: Fantastic.
Michael Kobler: Mike,
Lara Smith: Thank you so much.
Michael Kobler: Thank you.
