Rover Metals Corp. (ROVR:TSX.V; ROVMD:OTCQB; 4X0:FSE) has signed the definitive agreement to option a 100% ownership interest in a Nevada claystone lithium project, putting it closer to its goal of pivoting from gold to lithium and critical elements.
Rover’s Let’s Go Lithium project is located in Nevada’s southwest lithium jurisdiction near Albemarle Corp.'s (ALB:NYSE) Silver Peak mine, which is the only lithium-producing mine in North America.
The climate and energy package recently passed in the United States is bringing new urgency to the production of electric vehicle (EV) metals and minerals like lithium. Rover officials said they want to be positioned to take advantage of that.
The project “gives us a low-operating cost project in the hottest commodity in junior mining (lithium) in the best mining jurisdiction in the world,” Rover Chief Executive Officer and Director Judson Culter told Streetwise Reports. “(It) allows us to grow our company even in the current tougher capital-constrained markets.”
Rover last summer announced it had also closed on a deal involving the Indian Mountain Lake copper and zinc project in the Northwest Territories.
Rover said it had verified high-grade lithium surface samples at Let’s Go Lithium of 780 parts per million lithium (ppm Li), 910 ppm Li, and 710 ppm Li.
Further analysis of samples using handheld laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy found results of 1,218 ppm Li, 778 ppm Li, and 724 ppm Li.
Culter said the company is readying a US$200,000 reverse-circulation drill program to follow up on those high-grade samples. That exploration money will also be the company’s required earn-in to a 100% ownership of the project.
The later-stage greenfields lithium project includes hydro power lines, direct road access, and a nearby town with a readily available workforce, the company said. There have been four historical water wells drilled on the project that logged the claystone orebody as being close to surface, with an average thickness of over 300 feet across the approximate 6,000 acres of the property. Because of that, the project is district-scale in nature, Culter said.
The Catalyst
According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the deficit between lithium demand and production and highly probable and probable lithium projects will be over 3.5 million tonnes (Mt) by 2040.
The world needs lithium and other critical elements like copper to help fuel the move to green energy. Lithium — a soft, silvery metal with highly reactive and flammable properties — is a major component of EV batteries. It’s also used to strengthen alloys, as a high-temperature lubricant, and as a drug to treat bipolar disorder.
“The western world does not like to be beholden to the Chinese,” said rare earths expert Michael Thomsen, executive chairman and founding director of North American Strategic Minerals Inc.
One out of five vehicles sold worldwide could be an EV in less than two years, and Ford and General Motors have set a goal of achieving 40–50% of their sales from EVs in the U.S. by 2030. To qualify for tax credits under new U.S. laws, a significant percentage of batteries and minerals in batteries must come from the U.S. or Canada, a regional trade-treaty country.
China only has less than a quarter of the world’s lithium resources but controlled about two-thirds of the world’s lithium processing and refining capacity in 2021, Rystad Energy said.
“The western world does not like to be beholden to the Chinese,” said rare earths expert Michael Thomsen, executive chairman and founding director of North American Strategic Minerals Inc.
The company also recently announced a non-brokered private placement financing for a minimum of CA$350,000 and a maximum of CA$800,000, and it has closed the first tranche of CA$376,000.
Ownership and Share Structure
Culter and family members own about 2 million shares of Rover, and directors Keith Minty and Louis Covello own about 250,000 and about 50,000, respectively. There are no institutional shareholders, and the rest are retail.
Rover’s market cap is CA$2.23 million, and it has 26.3 million shares outstanding, 24.9 million of them free-floating. It trades in a 52-week range of CA$0.42 and CA$0.06.
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