With lithium prices at a record high – around US$71,000 a tonne for lithium carbonate – and demand for green technology surging, a cadre of exploration and development companies is looking to Manitoba as a source for the essential battery metal – and governments are signalling their approval.
Snow Lake Lithium (NASDAQ: LITM), which is drilling and expanding historical spodumene pegmatite deposits on its 223.8-sq.-km Thompson Brothers project in northwest Manitoba, is leading the charge. It hopes to enter production by 2026 using the province’s 99% renewable hydroelectric power grid, although no economic studies have yet been completed.
Since its 2022 drilling campaign began in January, Snow Lake has completed over 20,000 metres of drilling, tripling the amount of drilling that will be used in its next resource update. Drill hole GRP-027 intersected spodumene-bearing pegmatite from 39.4 metres to 69 metres. Spodumene content of the dyke is estimated at 20%. Assay results are expected in the fall.
Snow Lake Lithium CEO Phil Gross at the Snow Lake Lithium project in Manitoba. Credit: Snow Lake Lithium
In May, the company announced winter drilling results from the northeast extension of its Thompson Brothers deposit, which contains multiple spodumene pegmatite dykes. The best intercept was 1.49% Li2O (lithium oxide) over 34.5 metres starting from a depth of 233 metres. Another drill hole returned 1.52% Li2O over 18 metres, starting from 21 metres.
The project hosts an indicated resource of 9 million tonnes grading 1% Li2O for 91,200 tonnes, and an inferred resource of 2 million grading 0.98% Li2O for 19,300 Li2O tonnes.
In late September, Snow Lake announced a non-binding agreement with South Korea’s LG Energy to explore building a lithium hydroxide processing plant in Winnipeg. The memorandum of understanding also includes a 10-year lithium supply agreement that would start in 2025.
The deal is part of a growing interest in Canada by EV and battery manufacturers. In August, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen signed cooperation agreements with the federal government to source lithium, cobalt, and other green technology materials.
Ahead of the announcement, CEO Philip Gross told The Northern Miner that Snow Lake was looking at developing a facility outside Winnipeg to process lithium concentrate into commercial grade lithium products – hoping to work with end users from start to finish.
“I actually just visited the site yesterday,” said Gross in mid-September. “We are looking at building a plant there because there are no hydroxide plants in North America today – and that’s what’s truly needed in the regional market as part of the supply chain process, alongside the lithium mined, to deliver on the promise of the electric vehicle and electrification movement.”
Gross, who says he meets regularly with Manitoba provincial government leadership, is trying to advance the project as quickly as possible to meet industry needs. However, the company has not yet completed any economic studies. At the same time as it works towards a resource update, it has also engaged consultants to complete an initial assessment and then prefeasibility study.
“We are doing all the environmental baseline studies,” said Gross. “We are doing all the metallurgical studies. We’ve begun all the feasibility studies. The real value here is being able to bring product to market, so we are working feverishly to achieve that. We’ve had between two and three drills working constantly.”
Manitoba’s lithium potential
Currently there are at least six companies actively exploring for lithium in Manitoba and one producer, said geologist Mostafa Fayek, director of the Earth Materials and Archaeometry Centre at the University of Manitoba. The Tanco mine in southeast Manitoba, operated by Sinomine Resource Group, a Chinese company, is the only operating lithium mine in the province. Tanco produces cesium, tantalum and is known for its high grades, in the range of 2.7% lithium oxide.
“Now people have woken up to the fact that we need critical metals, and Manitoba and Canada are well endowed with them,” said Fayek, noting Tanco sits in a region replete with pegmatites enriched with lithium and other commercial elements – including uranium.
Foremost Lithium (CSE: FAT) is in the middle of an exploration program on properties adjacent to Snow Lake’s Thompson Brothers project. The company, with a 174-sq.-km land package, has many spodumene pegmatite showings and has been flying mag surveys combined with soil geochemistry to delineate targets for winter drilling.
A helicopter at Foremost Lithium’s Jean Lake lithium project. Credit: Foremost Lithium Resources/Twitter
“There are a lot of magnetic lows out there,” said geologist and VP of exploration Mark Fedikow. “And you could spend a billion dollars if you tried to drill all of them. So, what we have done is sampled the soils overtop of the mag lows. And we’ve come up with targets based on a mag low and anomalous mobile metal ion responses for lithium, cesium, rubidium, and niobium – the related elements.”
Foremost and Snow Lake straddle a structure that controls spodumene-bearing pegmatite deposits in the area, said Fedikow, adding the companies freely exchange information. In 2021, Foremost was awarded a $300,000 Manitoba Mineral Development Fund grant to support its exploration.
“The main structure in the area that focuses the spodumene-bearing pegmatite dykes is called the Crow Duck Bay Fault, and that fault is occupied by the Grass River,” he said. “So that is the focal point for the development of the pegmatite dykes as far as we can tell. Both Snow Lake Lithium and we straddle that structure and have picked up properties in the area.”
Foremost is also financed for winter drilling, said Fedikow.
“We are just about ready to list on the NASDAQ,” he said.
Other active juniors
New Age Metals (TSXV: NAM) in partnership with Australia’s Mineral Resources Ltd. (ASX: MIN) recently announced the start of its first drill program at its Lithium One project, roughly 140 km northeast of Winnipeg. The property is in the Winnipeg River pegmatite field, which hosts the Tanco pegmatite. The 1,000-metre planned drill program will target a down-dip extension of the Silverleaf pegmatite, which has yielded samples of up to 4.33% Li2O.
Silverleaf is a shallow dipping highly fractionated lithium-bearing pegmatite that has been traced by shallow diamond drilling and trenching along strike for roughly 170 metres with a maximum width of about 30 metres.”
In July, Grid Metals (TSXV: GRDM) announced drill results from its 75%-held Donner Lake lithium property in southeastern Manitoba. Highlights from the final holes of the 18-hole program completed at the Northwest Dyke earlier this year included 7.3 metres averaging 1.17% Li2O, including 2.1 metres at1.92%, 5.5 metres of 1.49% Li2O, including 3 metres at 2.41%, and 4.7 metres averaging 1% Li2O, including 1.7 metres at 1.57%. The dyke averages 4 to 8 metres wide and has been traced along 600 metres of strike length, and to depths of 50 to 250 metres. Toronto-based Lithium Royalty Corp. Holds a 25% interest in Donner Lake.
— James Snell is a natural resources journalist and former geological consultant based in Calgary.
—Note: The story has been updated to state indicated and inferred resources at Snow Lake’s Thompson Brothers deposit separately.
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