Commodity of the future - Lithium? CLQ.v, WLC.v, MCI.v, TNR.v and more!?

Seems like junior miner TNR Gold Corp has been making alot of waves lately - getting on front page of retail investor central Stockhouse yesterday with their big announcement - acquisition of Lithium projects in ... Canada.

Hopefully that should mean alot more easier financing (read: flow through!) in this climate - lithium has been mentioned under people's breaths the last few months - even the likes of Warren Buffet, Doug Casey, and various writers have jumped on board.

As far as my limited market knowledge has told me, there's only 3 other TSX juniors that's announced lithium property acquisitions recently... let's compare some success factors that determine if a company makes a run or not!

1) Property Merit
2) Leadership
3) Network, other JV's, other companies involved?

Let's compare quickly.
TNR Gold Corp
Other than properties in Argentina and Alaska, seems like junir miner TNR has expanded into the wave of exciting green energy plays - lithium!
Management and leadership: Gary Schellenberg - quick Google reveals he is well known around industry. Bought out by De Beers in one previous deal Winspear Resources for $300+ million. Possibly other successes, but that's not a bad track record to have!
Also runs Coast Mountain Geological - group that consults for TSX miners around Vancouver, Bravo Ventures Group (BVG), Serengeti Resources (SIR), Barrick, NewCrest, and more (check CMG site) - very similar to Equity Engineering, SGS Lakefield, etc.

Bio here: Mr. Schellenberg has been managing and financing public and private resource based companies for the past 20 years. This experience provides the Company with leadership and well defined corporate goals.
Looks like he is a geologist with B.Sc. Geo background - reassuring thought that it's not some broker who cannot tell rock formation from non-sense that geologist is telling you! Good to see few of his clients have done quite well last few years especially Bravo! Fund manager John Lee from Mau Capital was very bullish on Serengeti (SIR.v) awhile ago as well.
Other properties? 2 Lithium properties in Ontario - famous for pegmatite and rare earth elements area. Sounds like some historic drilling had good grades, very promising. Would've been nicer with resource but it's a great start!
Los Azules - OH MY! This is quite the interesting project...Minera Andes 43-101 resource 11.2 billion pounds copper + 23 year mine life @ $0.85/lb production cost!!
Shotgun - 1 million ounces of gold
El Salto - large porphyry copper system in San Juan w/ perfect infrastructures!
El Tapau - Good copper grades 0.5% not to mention 1g/t grade Gold!
Batidero - Tenke / Paul Connibear / Lundin Group
Iliamna - next Pebble? - BHP Billiton transferred to TNR (always nice to get properties from majors!) --> lotsa point on network and

Suffice to say - we like the company. Competent management, good network, lots of institutional investors and big financial backers.

Mountain Capital (MCI.v)
In a hierarchy of legitimacy - MCI takes last place, easily. Their webpage does not even have any map or much details so far --> says Alberta Research Council indicated 2.8 billion lbs of Lithium?? New page seems to be up finally - at least there's a bit more property details and management info! Thin team and running low on cash...$200K and

We found out about the project through spam-blast from infamous Vancouver tech-guru Mr. R. Szeto's KREW Communications IR e-mail-blast-follow-up-call firm. . Not surprisingly the lack of news fell short and the pump is gone shortly after few weeks ago. It's now flat back to high single digits. Will it come back up with more oooomph next round of boiler room?

First the layoff of directors late 2008 ---> next repricing of 700,000 options to $0.05.
Next comes hiring of promo firm PaRaDox from Quebec... sounds very typical of an overly-promotional TSX firms. This is one strike.

Who's at helm - Blair Naughty - largely unknown name in junior mining it seems - quick Google test doesn't come up with much - from profile sounds like another broker-turned-opportunity-miner? I don't claim to be a geologist but I imagine things sell easier than the management group at least has a Geo degree or a P.Geo on hand?

Other properties of merit - Worst yet, other property was...Potash. Did someone miss the Raytec and fertilizer pump of 2008 summer? Seems like they have dropped those projects already, when will they drop lithium? No other mentions of their past BC Gold property - this group seems to treat lithium like a fad more than anything else ---> PASS!!

Canada Lithium (CLQ)

Formerly Black Pearl Mining - what happened there? Name change, dump rest of properties and promote new commodity for 2009?

Who's at helm CEO - Judy Baker
"Judy Baker, MBA has been President of Canada Lithium Corp. since September 27, 2007. Ms. Baker has fourteen years of experience in the mining and mineral exploration sector including equity analysis, fund management, exploration services and mining company experience. He served as Vice President, Business Development & Investor Relations of Nevsun Resources Ltd. Ms. Baker served as President of Southeast Asia Mining Corp. from February 5, 2008 to May 25, 2008 and served ... as its Consultant. Her prior experience includes Institutional Sales, Toll Cross Securities, Toronto, North American Business Manager, Quantec Geoscience, Toronto, and Resource Analyst, US Global Investors, San Antonio, Texas. She has been a Director of Canada Lithium Corp. since September 27, 2007 and Absolut Resources Corp. since June 26, 2006. Ms. Baker has an MBA from University of Western Ontario, and an Honours B.Sc. in Geological Engineering, Mineral Resources Exploration from Queen's University."
It's difficult finding fault on the academic excellence and history of this group's leadership, Ivey's a great school and seems like she went to a top engineering school for Exploration Geology. Curiously seems like she's done more analytical jobs like CFA's instead of field exploration work. Regardless I'm sure having been through so many different aspects of the business (buy/sell/exploration/brokerage) she might have a decent network of contacts.

Let's move onto the news flow and properties...Quebec Lithium previous operating mine..

"Quebec Lithium is a system of underground spodumene-rich dikes. The mine
was operated under the former Quebec Lithium Corporation as an underground
mine, surface concentration plant and refinery from 1955 to 1965, to produce
ceramic grade and chemical grade spodumene concentrates, lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide monohydrate as well as a small quantity of lithium chloride and
feldspar. When mining operations were suspended, the proven ore reserve was stated to
be 15,612,300 tonnes at a grade of 1.14% Li2O calculated down to the 150 metre level in the proven, probable and possible categories. The reserve was
calculated using an 85% recovery rate and a 7% dilution factor. Over a period of
10 years of operation, the ore hoisted from underground works averaged a grade
of 1.25% of LiO2 against the composed 1.13%, derived from geological sections"
*Historical Reserves

Lets' be honest here, that property sounds reasonable! BLK's Other property includes a gold deposit @ Tully with 43-101 report. No major joint ventures and major investor group from sounds of it. I'd say this company sounds decent - if claims hold true and they could begin production? Note however it did take 10 years for them to define resource @ Tully... need a faster acting group!

Hold~

Western Lithium Corp (WLC)

A shell spin out from Western Uranium - this is the highest share price of the group at $0.55+.

Lotsa cash at $5 million, let's take a look at management.

Leadership
Mr. Chmelauskas was most recently President and CEO of Jinshan Gold Mines, Inc. In this position he successfully managed and led the company during all phases of the commissioning of one of China’s largest open pit gold mines. In addition to his considerable experience in the exploration, development, and mining industry, Jay has held key positions with companies in the chemical manufacturing industry, including Lead Analyst with Methanex Corporation where he was involved with a $250 million chemical plant expansion in Chile. His experience in both the chemical and mining industries is well suited to lead Western Lithium forward during the near term phases of development, product marketing and production.

Mr. Chmelauskas has a Bachelor of Applied Science in Geological Engineering, University of British Columbia and a Master of Business Administration, Queen’s University.

____
Jinshan has done a great job with properties in China - but I find it funny that Mr. Chmelauskas left Jinshan in the terrible month of October 2008. I guess leaving a company at its lowest stock price in years is an acceptable thing to do, provided it's better for your career to jump ship?

Optics are terrible about the timing, that's for sure! Will he leave Western Lithium if the money runs out??
Property at question - Chevron Resources began exploration for uranium in Nevada in the McDermitt Caldera area in 1975. In September 1977, the U.S. Geological Survey alerted Chevron to the presence of anomalous concentrations of lithium associated with volcaniclastic moat sediments within the caldera. Based on the information from the USGS, Chevron analyzed drill cuttings from rotary percussion drill holes drilled in 1977 in the moat sediments for lithium. One hundred and forty feet of hole number MJB-7-4 averaged 0.278% Li; eighty five feet of MJB-7-5 averaged 0.236% Li. These results confirmed the presence of significant lithium hosted by a massive, green claystone within the moat sediment section.

Reasonable sounding property - not that spectacular of result, however! Seems like they dropped all their other plays too? I'd put this slightly behind Canada Lithium. I have to say though the cash reserve is attractive!!

Hold~