Renewables Out-generating Fossils

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Delegates at the Paydirt 2018 Battery Minerals Conference in Perth heard that investment in renewable generation has eclipsed investment on fossil fuel generation in recent years.

Speaking on day one of the Paydirt 2018 Battery Minerals Conference, Future Smart Strategies managing director, Professor Ray Wills, told punters that since 2016, additions of renewable capacity in the power sector has been higher than coal, gas, oil and nuclear combined.

“Rapid, non-linear developments in and uptake of clean technologies – and even more rapid reductions in technology pricing – mean the nature of the global energy market, and in particular the electricity market, is changing both off-grid and on-grid around the world,” Professor Wills said.

“We are also seeing revolutionary shifts in how we do planning, project financing, and engineering for energy – and downstream into network and energy system management.

“A core difference to the technology now being deployed is its ability to be built quickly – and now more cheaply – than any other source of electricity generation.

“Add ever-increasing digitisation and integration for mobile applications – not just phones and tablets, but also power tools and gaming devices, and for personal mobility – also boosts demand for energy storage.”

According to Wills, the arrival of cost-competitive stationary storage offering network services as well as stored energy can deliver on-demand power provision from renewables.

He said a feature of mobile devices needing power is a perpetual pursuit of both energy efficiency in devices to prolong battery life, and battery density improvements to carry more solar and efficient appliances.

This includes lighting and storage that will demand smart energy management utilising AI and machine learning.

As battery technology improves so too does the falls in battery cost reductions, which continue to be consistently demonstrated with a high probability to continue.

Will said the emergence of electric vehicles, and the batteries that power them, has seen the automotive industry move from a “headline a year” to a “headline a day” in the car industry.

“Beyond the basics of all vehicles going electric, there are so many elements changing in the car industry – part of global mega trends in mobility and connectivity and autonomy and the internet of things,” he said.

“From the point of view of minerals for the storage revolution, it is crucial that action is taken quickly so Australia takes a share of the many new jobs (skilled and semi-skilled) in this two trillion-dollar value chain – an opportunity that might just double Australia’s GDP from a single new industry sector.

“In the age of a digital economy, Australia’s next major growth phase can be delivered by down-streaming and value-adding Australia’s lithium and other energy storage related resources.

“The key change with the new trends is that we have moved on from predicting what might happen in the future to measuring it, seeing it happen.

“The only question is just how fast the growth trend is – fast, very fast – or ludicrous?”

 

Western Australia Placed to Benefit from Technology Metal Rush

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COMMODITY CAPERS: Pundits speaking at the at Paydirt’s 2018 Battery Minerals conference in Perth have painted a rosy future for Western Australia as the country’s centre for battery technology commodity development.

Opening Day One of the conference, WA Minister for Mines and Petroleum, Bill Johnston highlighted the state’s potential to become a leader in the pending electronic resources boom.

“Strategic imperative for markets to not be overly exposed to single supplier systems has the potential to smooth out the customer base and increase demand for Western Australia’s resources,” Johnston said.

His expectations were echoed across the two days as speakers lined up to sing the praises of WA’s abundant technology metals resources.

According to Midas Engineering Group director/principal consulting engineer Damian Connelly, the expected demand for battery minerals will create a boom in Western Australia, “bigger and more sustained” than the state’s gold boom of the 1990s.

Speaking at day two of Paydirt’s 2018 Battery Minerals conference in Perth, Connelly said the sector was misjudging the full impact that demand for the precious commodity will have in the short to medium term.

“Make no mistake, the demand for battery minerals will create a WA boom bigger and more sustained than the gold boom of the 1990s,” Connelly said.

“The market and financial institutions are underestimating the huge disruptive change and the speed of change occurring in the technology of the battery market.

“The very demanding technical specifications for battery minerals will limit the suitability of some ores.

“With cobalt, nickel, vanadium and manganese, and exciting new technology will produce the demanding pure specifications required.

“Demand is currently exceeding supply and current expansions will still lag behind for a number of years to come.”

Connelly’s warning rang out the day after it was claimed Western Australia could soon become a global hub for battery manufacturing with the state expected to be the only jurisdiction in the country to produce all raw materials for lithium ion battery production.

Minerals Commodities Limited business development manager Daniel Hastings told the conference that with WA expected to become the only jurisdiction in Australia and possibly the world producing all raw materials for lithium-ion battery production – including nickel sulphate, lithium carbonate and hydroxide, and potentially battery anode material – the state will be well positioned to entice battery manufacturers to invest in infrastructure.

“We take the view – like most other companies – that the current energy revolution has just begun and the outlook for battery raw materials is extremely positive,” Hastings said.

Connelly basically agrees – and warned that sector and financial institutions need to act fast to ensure WA maximised this potential.

“The demand for high purity battery grade lithium carbonate is expected to grow significantly in the near term,” Connolly said.

“The lithium-ion battery sector is one of the fastest growing and largest consumers of lithium.

“Lithium-ion batteries have superior energy density, are more efficient and environmentally friendly than traditional acid batteries and the cost is falling based on innovation and technical development.

“Demand for battery minerals in WA is expected to grow at intense levels – plans and structures put in place now will heed well for the future.”

 

Modern Technology Lends a Hand to New Resource Discoveries

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Technology plays a big part in modern day resources exploration and has been as big a contributor to recent discoveries.

The Resources Roadhouse caught up with Chris Brand managing director of Australasian reseller of Bruker portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) instruments Portable Analysers Australia at the recetn RIU Explorers Conference in Fremantle.

 

Website: www.portableanalysersaustralia.com

2018 RIU Explorers Conference Day Three

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: The Resources Roadhouse wraps up its coverage of the 2018 RIU Explorers Conference in Fremantle.

Thundelarra Stakes Exploration Discovery Claims

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Thundelarra (ASX: THX) CEO Tony Lofthouse gave delegates at the RIU Explorers Conference in Fremantle something to think about. By Jack Baker

“We’re a gold explorer,” Lofthouse informed the crowd.

“We’re finding native, visible, fresh, free gold in fresh rock at 200-odd metres vertical extending below the existing operations…it’s not little stuff that’s coming out the near surface.

“This is real rock, real gold in the rock and it means there’s a primary deposit there and that’s what’s significant for us.

“We have money in the game and it’s not freebies that have been handed out…it’s hard earned cash in the company which is why we’re convinced that what we have is worth pursuing.”

The crux of the presentation was what the company believes to be a major discovery in the Garden Gully site.

Lofthouse said results of drilling of the Lydia and Crown Prince sites at Garden Gully show near-surface material he thinks they can get to.

He said that while some deposits may be deep; they are showing that below the existing workings they are still seeing a high grade perpetuated below the historical work.

He also noted that Garden Gully was situated close to the established Andy Well and Bluebird gold plants, with the ability to arrange toll treatment operations for quick monetisation.

“If we can do that we can start self-funding further exploration to establish the potential that exists unquestionably at depth at this deposit,” he said.

One thing that Lofthouse found interesting was observation of gold within arsenopyrite.

While its presence complicates mineralisation, he noted that it was rare you get any deposit of size without some structural complexity.

“We own our interests and our destiny 100 per cent and the bits that we don’t own are freebies for us,” he said.

“They don’t have any drain on any of our capital, either intellectual or financial.”

 

Email: info@thundelarra.com.au

Website: www.thundelarra.com.au

 

Alloy Resources Believes Buyback puts Gold Project in Better Place

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Speaking at the RIU Explorers Conference in Fremantle, Alloy Resources (ASX: AYR) Executive Chairman Andrew Viner was optimistic the company is ready to start moving forward after an extended down period. By Jack Baker

“What we’ve tried to do with Alloy is get quality projects,” he told the conference audience.

“We’ve got projects adjacent to major world-class mining centres, we’ve got large land holdings, really good geology, established mineralisation and in all cases are underexplored.

“We’re looking for gold which remains fabulous, particularly in Australia.

“We’ve got a very exciting new high-grade discovery that’s happened next door.

“We’ve got multiple exploration targets that are ready to go with no impediments apart from lots of rain.”

Alloy Resources managed to buyback 11 per cent of its Horse Well Joint Venture from partner Doray Minerals (ASX: DRM) for $500,000 in order to attain a 51 per cent majority stake and retake control of the project in January, which Viner believes could become one of Australia’s premier gold mines.

The venture involves 1000 square kilometres of greenstone belt just 50 kilometres north of Northern Star’s 220,000 ounce per annum Jundee gold mine in the Wiluna district.

The company had been relatively dormant for the past 16 months during a lack of funding.

“There was no risk capital, the bad old days, unlike today,” Viner explained.

“We couldn’t find the funding and had to farm it out.”

Speaking later to The Resources Roadhouse, Viner said now that Alloy has the project back it can return to mining highly graded prospects that were too small for Doray to look at.

“Doray was looking for a big standalone…trying to find a million ounce, two-million-ounce deposit,” he said.

“We can go back to these highly graded prospects that have always been there that are perfect for Alloy.”

He also mentioned that with the project returned to the company’s management it could deal with larger players that were less likely to speak with a competitor in Doray.

“We can talk to Northern Star now,” Viner declared.

“The main thing for us is to create value that is going to get our share price up, play the game, maybe we end up being a target for Northern Star…we can do that, Doray couldn’t really do that.”

Viner pointed out that Doray possessing a clawback option in the case of a major discovery isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“If that happens I’d be quite happy being free carried at 49 per cent, he said.

“Ee made sure that if there’s smaller discoveries we can develop them.

“There’s no impediment to us finding and developing smaller deposits.”

Viner said the Celia shear going through the middle of the greenstone belt was a major focus for the company.

“The Celia Shear actually has 300,000 ounces, it’s a bit deep and there’s quite a lot of depletion through there, but there’s a lot of gold,” he said.

“You combine that with our Horse Well deposits and you’ve already got yourself a mineralised structure with 380,000 ounces on it.”

The recent discovery of the Coralie Jean prospect was a cause of excitement for Viner.

“Lo and behold a little company called Overland Resources made a discovery late last year…it’s located in an exploration license that we completely surround,” Viner said.

“Fifty-five samples have averaged 17.3 grams of gold per tonne, it goes over 400 metres, an absolutely brilliant prospect-type discovery.”

Viner also touched on the company’s large cobalt and gold endowment near Broken Hill.

“Of course, cobalt is a very high demand metal for battery technology…you might have heard of Cobalt Blue, they have an absolutely huge deposit, 50,000 tonnes of cobalt,” he said.

“It really has a very good chance of being a major cobalt development in Australia, fortuitously Alloy landed with a 100 per cent-owned very large block of land right in the middle with the same geology and some signs of mineralisation.

“I didn’t really get a chance to stress that we have a great chance of finding something,

“Because the two players either side of us are at pre-feasibility stage, I’m really exploring to find more high-grade feed for those things…I can definitely add value there as well.

“We’ve got a really hot exploration project there, I hope you can see that, we’ve got the board that can do it.

“We’re in gold, we’re in cobalt: great places to be, we’ve got seriously strategic projects, we’ve got really big targets, we’re well funded, we’ve got a lot of support and there’s going to be a lot of activity over the coming year.”

 

Email: info@alloyres.com

Website: www.alloyres.com

 

2018 RIU Explorers Conference Day Two

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: The Resources Roadhouse continues its coverage of the 2018 RIU Explorers Conference.

 

Australian Mines: Potential Prime Cobalt Player

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Addressing a crowd of potential investors at the 2018 RIU Explorers Conference, Australian Mines (ASX: AUZ) managing director Benjamin Bell declared the company’s status as the most advanced cobalt-nickel-scandium producer in Australia. By Jack Baker

Australian Mines announced on Monday that it has entered into a $5 billion off-take agreement with Korean company, SK Innovation.

The contract, for up to 13 years, is for SK to purchase 100 per cent of the product from Australian Mines’ Sconi plant in Queensland, totalling roughly $400 million worth of cobalt-nickel per year.

Part of the agreement is for SK to provide funding and to potentially take a 20 per cent stake at a 30 per cent premium.

Bell emphasised that the arrangement was more than a simple off-take relationship.

“The reason why we did this deal with SK, we’ve spoken to a number of companies, car battery manufacturers and the like,” he told the full auditorium.

“It’s not just a buyer seller relationship, it’s a partnership.

“They’ll help build the plant, come onto our board and take the product…it de-risks the project, it means it gets built.

“This is the only one in the country that shows a clear path into production.”

Bell admitted that many cobalt nickel companies have forecast growth in battery-metal demand based on the promise of the electric car but emphasised that Australian Mines is already there.

“Our cobalt-nickel is specifically going into that car,” he said.

“This is not a picture of a conceptual car…it’s going straight into Mercedes-Benz via the SK plant in Hungary.”

The company has constructed a demonstration plant in Perth for investors.

Capable of producing nickel and cobalt sulphate for sale, the plant is also capable of producing scandium oxide for other interested off-take parties.

Australian Mines has additional cobalt projects in the pipeline with the Sconi project essentially completed.

The second is in Flemington where it begins drilling next month with a third near Broken Hill.

Bell said the company would inevitably be compared to Clean TeQ (ASX: CLQ), Australia’s largest cobalt company, but iterated his belief in Australian Mines’ standing as the most advanced.

“In addition to getting ours in production probably first and being able to show a clear pathway to that, you’re also getting the upside for more than one project,” he stated.

 

Website: www.australianmines.com.au

 

Pilbara Minerals Wins 2018 Craig Oliver Award

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Pilbara Minerals (ASX: PLS) has been awarded the Craig Oliver award on the second morning of the RIU Explorers Conference in Fremantle. By Jack Baker

The award is presented each year at the Explorers Conference in memory of Craig Oliver who was killed when the plane carrying board members of Sundance Resources (ASX: SDL) crashed in the Congo in 2010.

The award is given to the company that is considered to exemplify an all-round excellence in several fields over the past year, including exploration, mining, corporate, market results, environment and community.

Accepting the award, Pilbara Managing Director and CEO Ken Brinsden said it was an honour to be nominated and humbling to win amongst the other esteemed nominees, adding that companies needed to take a leap of faith necessary to succeed in the mining industry.

“Our industry only thrives when people are prepared to take risk, to spend money in the ground and to continue to build resource,” Brinsden said.

“That’s where Pilbara had a fantastic head start, we had our founding directors and, in particular John Young and Neil Biddle, spending money on the ground when it wasn’t sexy to be spending money in Lithium.

“It wouldn’t happen unless they made that original investment, taken that first risk and been prepared to back the quality in the project.”

The emerging Lithium and Tantalum producer is busy bringing its world-class, 100 per cent-owned Pilgangoora project into production as demand for battery metals to power electric vehicles surges.

Brendan Oliver, presenting the award on behalf of the Oliver family, said that Pilbara Minerals ticked every box that Craig Oliver strived for and it is moving forward in a way that all companies in the state and country should aspire to.

The other nominees included Gold Road Resources, Sandfire Resources, Syrah Resources and Xanadu Mines.

 

Genesis Minerals Upgrades Gold Deposit as Drilling Commences

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Genesis Minerals (ASX: GMD) announced that recent drilling of the company’s Ulysses gold deposit has shown a 55 per cent increase in contained ounces and a 31 per cent increase in average grade. By Jack Baker

Genesis Minerals declared the total Ulysses Mineral Deposit now stands at 321,000 ounces of contained gold from 3.3 million tonnes at 3 grams per tonne gold.

The company described the results of its recent drilling program completed over the second half of 2017 as highly successful.

Genesis said the results had confirmed and extended a number of high-grade gold zones estimated at 1.2 million tonnes at 5.5g/t gold for 215,000 ounces.

“The significant gold endowment within these plunging high-grade shoots clearly has the potential to form the core of a significant long-term underground mining operation,” Genesis Minerals managing director Michael Fowler said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Importantly, we now have a clear understanding of the geometry and controls on the mineralisation, which has allowed our exploration team to focus on the next phase of drilling, set to begin shortly.

“Ulysses is demonstrating all the attributes that we see in many gold systems in the Eastern and North-eastern Goldfields. Put simply, it continues to grow and improve at depth the more we drill.

“We are very excited about the potential to build a very significant gold inventory at Ulysses and we are looking forward to seeing the results from the next round of drilling, which commences later this week.”

The company is commencing 4000 metres of further resource expansion drilling to test potential depth extensions to the Ulysses resource and believe that strong potential exists in the hanging wall to the north of the Ulysses shear.

At the RIU Explorers conference in Fremantle, Fowler elaborated on what the next stage aimed to achieve for the company.

“What we’re looking to do is just expand the current resource between the 100 and 200 reduced level, it’s really just expanding,” he told The Resources Roadhouse.

“We’re really comfortable with what we’ve got in the top 200 metres and we expect it to continue at depth without any issues.

“We’ve done a lot of geological modelling and that shows that mineralisation will extend at depth and there’s no geological reason why that’s not the case.

“We’re pretty confident in being able to significantly expand the resource in the next round of drilling.”

 

Website: www.genesisminerals.com.au