THE CONFERENCE CALLER: If the mining industry was a dysfunctional family, then sibling rivalry reached new heights at Diggers & Dealers this week.

Gold traditionalists were feeling pushed to the side at this year’s Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum in Kalgoorlie, and then the awards at the Gala Dinner left them in no doubt lithium is the new favourite.

Walking around the Big Top, The Roadhouse bumped into many old gold-focused chums who couldn’t hide their chagrin at the attention being heaped upon the family’s younger sibling lithium.

For the first time ever, lithium companies outnumbered the usual gold presentations and the exhibition area basked in a bluish haze as the spruiking from the battery essential permeated the atmosphere.

If there had been any rhinoplasty surgeons in attendance at the Gala Dinner, they would have been kept busy throughout proceedings as gold noses were put out of joint when all company awards went to companies that had achieved lithium greatness throughout the past 12 months.

First electric cab of the rank was the 2023 Dealer of the Year Award, which went to Allkem (ASX: AKE) for striking a 16 billion dollar merger with Livent Corporation to create a global lithium chemicals producer to be known as NewCo.

Livent comes to the pairing as a global leader in lithium processing technologies with nearly eight decades of experience producing a diverse range of lithium chemicals for energy storage and other specialty applications.

Allkem brings complementary expertise in conventional brine-based lithium extraction, hard rock mining, and lithium processing.

With Livent’s technical and commercial capabilities and its deep customer relationships, and Allkem’s large and diverse resource base and significant growth pipeline, NewCo will be well-positioned to capitalize on the expected growth in lithium demand from electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage solutions.

The Digger of the Year Award is presented each year to a company considered by the judges to have achieved exceptional results from its operations over the past 12 months.

The winner of the 2023 Digger of the Year award was Pilbara Minerals (ASX: PLS) on the back of a healthy year at the company’s Pilgangoora lithium project near Port Hedland.

In the 2022/23 financial year, Pilbara Minerals increased its sales volumes by 68 per cent, which when factored into strong lithium prices, saw revenues increase 238 per cent to a lazy 4 billion dollars, giving the company a cash balance of 3.3 billion dollars.

In the last quarter alone, Pilbara increased production of spodumene concentrate by 10per cent to 162,8000 tonnes in Q4 FY23, the highest quarter it has achieved since commissioning.

The gold bugs sat with trepidation for the announcement of the Dealers Emerging Company award, hoping for a bone to be tossed their way, but alas it was not to be with lithium enjoying a D&D clean sweep.

The Emerging Company award recognises the venture the judges deem to have the greatest potential to develop into a substantial project.

This year the 2023 Emerging Company award went to Patriot Battery Metals (ASX: PMT).

Patriot Battery Metals is a hard-rock lithium exploration company focused on advancing its Corvette Property in northern Quebec, Canada.

The project currently boasts a maiden mineral Resource estimate of 109.2 million tonnes at 1.42 per cent lithium oxide, which is the largest lithium pegmatite mineral resource in the Americas and the 8th largest globally.