Lithium in Spotlight so is WLC, TNR, CLQ - Info on Lithium Expert Fred Breaks (AVL, Houston Lake, RES)

More and more, the world is realizing the need for a cleaner and more efficient energy solution.

When the powerhouse China steps into the arena, we will see alot more juniors jumping into the foray with their early stage properties. Whether or not those properties have merit is another question though!

Since our last lithium corporation coverage article March 18:


MCI has fallen off from $0.13 to around $0.08-0.09 range
Updates: They seem to have acquired a property with Zimtu group.

Not sure how MCI plans on funding this exploration project however, they seem to have a tendency to drop projects and jumped in/out several other commodities without much progress - Potash, Gold, etc.

Mountain Capital, Zimtu Capital property agreement 2009-04-07 16:31 ET - Property Agreement The TSX Venture Exchange has accepted for filing an property acquisition agreement dated Feb. 26, 2009, between Mountain Capital Inc., Zimtu Capital Corp., a TSX Venture Exchange-listed company, and 877384 Alberta Ltd. (Debbie Dahrouge), whereby the company will acquire a 100-per-cent interest in 41 metallic and industrial minerals permits, which consist of three separate properties located west to northwest of Edmonton, Alta. Total consideration consists of $90,000 in cash payments, 1.2 million shares of the company and 1.2 million share purchase warrants exercisable at 25 cents for two years, all payable and issuable within five days of exchange acceptance. In addition, there is a 3-per-cent net smelter return and a 5-per-cent gross overriding royalty on the gross production of diamonds. The company may, at any time, purchase 1 per cent of the net smelter return for $1-million in order to reduce the total net smelter return to 2 per cent. There is no buyback clause relating to the gross overriding royalty. There is a finder's fee of $8,400 cash and 67,200 shares payable to Richard Macey.

Last I checked they had $460K term deposit and $23K cash from SEDAR quarterly filings, can they afford to do much more with the acquisition? Zimtu is affiliated with Commerce Resources (CCE.v) - fair guess it is the same Dahrouge associated with VP Jodi Dahrouge, no? Makes you wonder why CCE doesn't keep it for itself for a mere $90K, CCE has $2 million+ in the bank.
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TNR GOLD CORP (TNR:TSX) - risen up to $0.07 from $0.05 - moving gradually up?
This group surprisingly was able to appoint Rare Element Resources' and Avalon Venture's flagship project founder - Dr. Fred Breaks.

Quick GOOGLE Search of F.Break's background will reveal this as very positive news - to have someone of that merit guide and review TNR's moves is a tremendous accomplishment. May see more market appreciation or even investors from RES / AVL jumping on board TNR. This guy has found some of the largest pegmatite type rare earth / lithium deposits in Canada. Houston Lake Mining's Pakeagama Lake property mineralization was also discovered by Dr Breaks it seems (link here).

Based on this initial field work, Dr Fred Breaks of the OGS conducted three weeks of detailed mapping and sampling in 1998. Dr. Breaks identified a strongly zoned, complex petalite subtype pegmatite. The combination of size, accessibility and the presence of both geochemical indicators and rare metal ore minerals, provide the Property with high potential for economic rare metal mineralization

Channel sampling of the 13 metre wide Northern Wall Zone of the Pakeagama Lake pegmatite returned 344 g/t tantalum oxide, 0.90 percent rubidium oxide, 1776 g/t cesium oxide, 68.9 g/t tin, 131.9 g/t niobium oxide, 1.34 percent lithium oxide, 25.9 g/t thallium, and 42.2 g/t gallium over a true width of 11 metres. The Pakeagama Lake Northern Wall Zone channel sample results compare favourably to Sons of Gwalia Limited’s Wodgina mine which is located in Western Australia. The Wodgina mine is a world-class tantalum-only producer containing 27 million tonnes averaging 420 g/t tantalum oxide.

Some objective links from around the web & Ontario Government (Geological Survey) about Fred Breaks:

Rare Element Pegmatites - North-Central Ontario - AVL Calculated Resources Estimate 2001 - 800,000 tonnes averaging 0.032 wt% Tantalum, 340,000 tonnes averaging 0.037 wt% Ta2O5 and 2.29 wt% Cs2O
http://www.mndm.gov.on.ca/mines/ogs/Posters/NWMMS_2005/Breaks_NNW_2005.pdf

Separation Lake and surrounding area has in recent years emerged as, if not the most, certainly among the most, important host to rare-element pegmatites in Ontario. The Separation Rapids pegmatite field (Figure 1), located where the English River forest access road crosses the English River near Separation Rapids, was first discovered in the 1993 field season by Fred Breaks of the Ontario Geological Survey (OGS).

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5903678/Agreement-Reached-to-Retire-Advance.html
However, it wasn't until the 1998 work by Dr. Fred Breaks of the OGS that the full implications of the discovery were realized. The Pakeagama Rare Metals pegmatite was the recent subject of a two year collaboration between Dr. Breaks of the OGS and Dr. Andy Tindle of The Open University in the United Kingdom. Their extensive documentation of the pegmatite depicted the second largest, complex type, petalite sub-type pegmatite in Ontario with highly anomalous to economically significant values of tantalum, cesium, rubidium, lithium, beryllium, niobium, tin, gallium, germanium and thallium.

http://www.mndm.gov.on.ca/mines/ogs/Posters/NWMMS_2005/Hall_NW_2005.pdf

http://mgmudrey.brinkster.net/Compressed/ILSG%2048%20Kenora%20field%20guide.CV.pdf

http://emg.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/14/1-4/1

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CLQ hanging around $0.15 - no significant newsflow - behind the scenes development I suppose?

WLC spiked up from $0.52 to $0.75 last week along banking optimism in the US tapering off to $0.67 today - in process of arranging $4.03 million financing and has a new IR firm. This is a solid group with capital and high profile industry connections (CEO used to run Jinshan Mining) - I fully expect TNR, CLQ, and WLC to be the ones to aim for if lithium starts getting more attention (and it has). Keeping in mind they'll likely want related parties to be supporting stocks lately so it hangs around $0.80 so there is a slight premium for the warrants! Good to buy on a drop to $0.60 as I expect it to bounce back to around $0.70 for PP appearance's sake.

Western Lithium arranges $4.03-million financing

2009-04-07 08:57 ET - News Release

Ms. Cindy Burnett reports

WESTERN LITHIUM ANNOUNCES $4 MILLION BROKERED PRIVATE PLACEMENT

Western Lithium Canada Corp. will be proceeding with a brokered private placement to raise $4.03-million by issuing up to 6.2 million units at a price of 65 cents per unit, plus an overallotment option of up to $1.04-million.

Each unit will comprise one common share and one-half of a common share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant will entitle the holder to purchase an additional common share for a period of 12 months at a price of 80 cents.

Western Lithium Canada Corp Symbol WLC Shares Issued 51,220,000 Close 2009-04-06 C$ 0.69 Recent Sedar Documents Western Lithium arranges $4.03-million financing 2009-04-07 08:57 ET - News Release Ms. Cindy Burnett reports WESTERN LITHIUM ANNOUNCES $4 MILLION BROKERED PRIVATE PLACEMENT Western Lithium Canada Corp. will be proceeding with a brokered private placement to raise $4.03-million by issuing up to 6.2 million units at a price of 65 cents per unit, plus an overallotment option of up to $1.04-million. Each unit will comprise one common share and one-half of a common share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant will entitle the holder to purchase an additional common share for a period of 12 months at a price of 80 cents. The company has engaged Haywood Securities Inc. to act as agent for the offering, and has agreed to pay Haywood a cash commission equal to 6 per cent of the gross proceeds of the private placement. The company will also issue to Haywood that number of agent's warrants as is equal to 6 per cent of the number of units sold. Each agent's warrant will entitle Haywood to purchase one common share for a price of 70 cents for a period of 12 months. All of the securities issued pursuant to the private placement will be subject to a hold period expiring four months and a day after the closing date. The closing of the sale of the units is expected to occur on or about April 30, 2009, and is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. Proceeds of the private placement will be used to finance continuing engineering and development studies for the company's lithium project in Nevada, including additional drilling of the lithium deposit to conform to National Instrument 43-101 requirements. Proceeds will also go toward general corporate purposes. We seek Safe Harbor.

Will be interesting to see them drilling in Nevada for Lithim though!! That area is famed for easy-production of lithium brine (liquid form)!!

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China Vies to Be World’s Leader in Electric Cars

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/global/02electric.html?_r=1&em

TIANJIN, China — Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.

The goal, which radiates from the very top of the Chinese government, suggests that Detroit’s Big Three, already struggling to stay alive, will face even stiffer foreign competition on the next field of automotive technology than they do today.

“China is well positioned to lead in this,” said David Tulauskas, director of China government policy at General Motors.

To some extent, China is making a virtue of a liability. It is behind the United States, Japan and other countries when it comes to making gas-powered vehicles, but by skipping the current technology, China hopes to get a jump on the next.

Japan is the market leader in hybrids today, which run on both electricity and gasoline, with cars like the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight. The United States has been a laggard in alternative vehicles. G.M.’s plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt is scheduled to go on sale next year, and will be assembled in Michigan using rechargeable batteries imported from LG in South Korea.

China’s intention, in addition to creating a world-leading industry that will produce jobs and exports, is to reduce urban pollution and decrease its dependence on oil, which comes from the Mideast and travels over sea routes controlled by the United States Navy.

But electric vehicles may do little to clear the country’s smog-darkened sky or curb its rapidly rising emissions of global warming gases. China gets three-fourths of its electricity from coal, which produces more soot and more greenhouse gases than other fuels.

A report by McKinsey & Company last autumn estimated that replacing a gasoline-powered car with a similar-size electric car in China would reduce greenhouse emissions by only 19 percent. It would reduce urban pollution, however, by shifting the source of smog from car exhaust pipes to power plants, which are often located outside cities.

Beyond manufacturing, subsidies of up to $8,800 are being offered to taxi fleets and local government agencies in 13 Chinese cities for each hybrid or all-electric vehicle they purchase. The state electricity grid has been ordered to set up electric car charging stations in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.

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Taken from Forbes last year
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/1124/034.html

The lithium bonanza may just be starting. Lithium-ion batteries are integral to the automobile industry's plans to wean itself off fossil fuels. The hotly anticipated Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid car slated to debut in 2010, will use a lithium-ion battery alongside a 1.4-liter gas engine. Mercedes plans to roll out a hybrid version of its S-Class sedan in 2009 and will similarly rely on lithium-ion technology to produce superior mileage. Nissan (nasdaq: NSANY - news - people ) is working with NEC to mass-produce lithium-ion batteries for hybrids, in hopes of churning out 65,000 per year by 2010.

Since a vehicle battery requires a hundred times as much lithium carbonate as its laptop equivalent, the green-car revolution could make lithium one of the planet's most strategic commodities. The rush is on to find and develop new sources of it, a race that has mining companies scouring the globe's remotest corners, from the high-altitude deserts of Chile and Bolivia to the wilds of northern Tibet. The prospectors seem undeterred by the possibility that lithium's automotive heyday could be cut short by the cost and complexity of lithium-ion batteries. They prefer instead to focus on optimistic forecasts. Kevin McCarthy, a commodity chemicals analyst at Bank of America (nyse: BAC - news - people ), sees the potential for double-digit annual sales growth for lithium carbonate at least through 2012.

Such rosy short-term predictions have investors swooning over Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile S.A., or SQM, the Chilean fertilizer and mining company that produces nearly a third of the world's lithium carbonate and whose leather-skinned employees brave the Salar de Atacama for the sake of gadget lovers. In the past three years the Big Board-traded shares of SQM have climbed from $11 to $22. In the first six months of 2008 SQM reported a profit of $191 million, up 103% from a year earlier, on sales of $787 million, up 41%.

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