"green" minerals

8/13/2019 "Green" Minerals

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Strategie Mineralsh e b a t tle to s e c u r e s u p p ly

For many years, the group of 17 elements, which make up what iseferred to as the rare earth elements, was paid little attention by theublic and national governments. Necessary for manufacturing manyf the high-tech and green energy products used around the world,

hese elements, particularly those failing under the heavy rare earthategory, are of strategic importance to both the private sector and

national government. Measures taken by the Chinese governmento curtail exports of the elements have caused a flurry of activity inhe past couple years, with prices rising several thousand percent in

many cases, only to fall again in the second half of 2 0 1 1 .

Nonetheless, with some estimates expecting global demand toignificantly exceed supply over the next five years, national govern-

ments and manufacturers alike are still anxious to secure suppliesn d with prices still many times higher than they were two yearsg o companies still stand to make significant profits if they can findconomic sources outside China's borders.

Despite their name, the greatest challenge facing rare earth pro-uction is not in their discovery, but rather in the extraction of thelements, which requires very high levels of extraction expertise and

metallurgical know-how. Canadian companies, renowned for theirechnical abilities, have been quick to join in on the effort to dis-over alternative sources for these elements. Unconventionally, some

Canadian companies have not limited their rare earth explorationfforts to the traditional mining regions of the world, but have looked

o less-recognized mining nations as potential sources for rare earthroduction. A prime example of this is Montero Mining.

Headed by Dr. Antony Harwood, president and CEO, MonteroMining has set a goal of becoming the first rare earth metals pro-

ucer in Africa by 2013, producing up to 5,000 mt/y of rare earths.The goal to commence production in such a short period of time isby no means a coincidence. Fast-tracking production is paramounto Montero Mining's overarching business strategy. According to Dr.Harwood, We have embarked on this strategy due to the uncertaintyf the future prices of the rare earths; different rare earth analystsnd commentators give vastly different views on the future price andemand. In fast tracking our production we wish to lock in the salesf rare earths at the best price, which in our estimation determineshat this is the sooner than a later production d ate.

When asked about the core strengths of his flagship Wigu Hillroject, in Tanzania, which will allow him to achieve this goal, Har-

wood said, Mi nin g is a simple business and great mineral depositsbecome mines when they have very specific features; we believewe have these at Wigu Hill. A good mineral grade is essential; wehave an average grade of 5% to 10% TREO (total rare earth oxide)but have up to 27.25% TREO values in the mineralization. A great

eposit needs size and tonnage potential and at Wigu Hill we havemineralization that Is found in a carbonatite complex over 6 km in di-meter and 3 km in width; a giant complex. The whole area of Wigu

Hill is mineralized in one form or another; the challenge for us is to

ind the wider and better grade zones in the carbonatite complex. Themineralized rock is exposed at surface and has not been weathered.This will make an open-pit low-cost mining method possible and in

MINING & EXPLORATION

Strategy to tast-track projectto production - to be

AFRICA'S 1RARE EARTH Producer

Flagship Wigu Hill REE Project in Tanzania

Values u p fo 27.25% TREO from tren ch ing an d16.68% TREO from drilling

Basfnaesife = Mo unfa in Pass look-a-likeNI 43 101 (2 of 10 fargets) 2,225m of shallow drilling- 3.3Mt @ 2.6% LREO5 with 510,000t @ 4.4% LREO5

Advancing the hydro-meta l lu rgy wi th Mintek ,South Africa

Focus to increose high grade resourcesand fast track to become a rare earth

miner and producer


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I * S T A N S ; -

A Rare O ppo rtunity:We are ready to start

Kutessay II is th e only pa s tprod ucin g Heavy Rare EarthElements (HREE) mine in the

world outside of Ch ina. StansEnergy ow ns a 20 year min ing

license acquired th roug hauction in December 2009.W ith this purchase, StansEnergy C orp. effectively

becomes the only companyoutside China with proven

industrial scalehydrometal lurgy for all 15 Rare

Earth metals and oxides.

Stans Energy Corp. and ourlocal subsidiaries are workingtowards rebuilding the mine

and refurbishing the processingfacilities in order to br ing

Kyrgyzstan back to the globalforefront of Rare Earth Element

product ion .

T S X - V : H R E O T C Q X : H R E E F

STANS ENERGY CORP.

8 King St. East, Suite 205 , T oron to, ON , M5C 1B5Tel: 647 426 1865 Fax: 647 426 1869info@>stan5energy.com

95 % of the rare earth mineralization. We areconfident that the rare earth elements canbe economically extracted from bastnaesitebecause they are extracted from this mineralin China, as well as at MoiyCorp's MountainPass d eposit in Ca lifornia.

With regards to environmental concernsand access to the site. Dr. Harwood said, Environmentally we believe there are noconstraints to mine development and localcommunities have been engaged and arenot located near the main body of the min-eralization or potential mining facility. Theinfrastructure around the site is dirt road,but these are generally good and there is theTazara rail siding 12 km away. This railwaylinks the property to the major port of Dar EsSalaam. The site is accessible by road, rail,and air; there is an air strip 40 km from thesite so we can fly people in and out read ily.

With core strengths that are difficult tolocate throughout the world, it appears thatMontero Mining is set for success. Never-theless, Harwood conceded that Wigu Hillfaces its own set of unique challenges. "Wehave a world-class deposit and good accessto capital, but the time that it takes to drill,to complete feasibility studies, to have as-says returned and to have third-party con-sultants to complete write-ups and Q/VOCon time and on budget is hard. These days

there is a great deal of exploration workhappening around the world so it takesconsulting groups a lot longer to completework than what it used to. Globally there isa shortage of skilled professionals and weare fortunate that we have a skilled tea m onour Wigu Hill project.

Another Canadian looking to become thenext rare earths producer is Stans Energy.With a general focus on the Central Asiaand the former Soviet Union, Stans Ener-gy's flagship asset, the Kuttessay II mine, is

located in Kyrgyzstan. Although Kyrgyzstanma y at first appear to be an unlikely juris-diction for rare earth production, it shouldbe noted that the country supplied much ofthe Soviet Union via the Kuttessay II, theonly hard-rock, heavy rare earth mine everto be put into production in the world. Al-though no longer in production, Stans En-ergy successfully acquired the KuttessayII mine in 2009, wi th the hope of resus-citating the once-prolific deposit. With theprevious owner failing to fulfill its licensingagreement with the government resulting

in its suspension and the auctioning of theproperty to the highest bidder, Stans Energysuccessfully raised the money required to

an alternative source for rare earth protion pertains to the highly difficult etion of these elements. Nevertheless, RoMackay, president and CEO of Stans Enseems hopeful that he has found a tion to this technical hurdle. Wh at d

guishes Stans Energy from other rare ecompanies outside of China is that we a proven meta llurgical process, Masaid. "The fundam ental point to rememwhen discussing rare earths is that withe proper metallurgy, all one has are rEvery time I make this statement in froother CEOs they cringe, however, this fact. There has never been a successful allurgical separation technology develfor complex silicates. While there has a lot of money spent on finding a solutithis issue, nobody appears to be close.

Hoping to overcome the technical lenges associated with rare earth producStans Energy has teamed up with VNthe Russian Leading Research InstitutChemical T echnology. "The number of hrare earth experts outside of China cancounted on one hand. Stans Energy's pnership with VNIIHT has provided us the knowledge and assistance of threthese experts. Dr. Valry Kosynkin, a mber of our advisory board, is the most knedgeable rare earth specialist in the w

His expertise has helped distinguish SEnergy from the other rare earth compathat have been established over the couple years, said Mackay.

Prior to the fall of the Soviet Unionthird of the Kutessay II was mined by pit. Consequently, two thirds of the deremain and can be readily extracted. SEnergy is in the process of drilling undeexisting deposit, with the goal of acqumore knowledge on the grade and minization of the asset.

An additional strength of this prois its close proximity to infrastructure. beauty of this property is that you can your Prius right into the bottom of the pThe infrastructure is a tremendous afor Stans Energy. Our private rail tnal acquired by us earlier this year iinvaluable asset, allowing us to transfuel and mining equipment with ease tosite. The infrastructure is the best of rare earth property anywhere in the wosaid Mackay.

The com pany's business plan is to exproduction dramatically from the historisource. To execute th is plan, Mackay is ing at 2014 as a rea listic goal for produc


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Green' MineralsUjOg, or triuranium octoxide, is one of themore comm on forms of yellow cake, a fun-

amental ingredient in any nuclear reaction.Naturally, it would be safe to assume thatompany named after this chemical com-

ound would be strictly dedicated to theroduction of uranium. But U308 Corp. isroving that this assumption is a false one.

After acquiring its Colombia-based Ber-in project, U308 is looking to rebrand it-elf. Although it continues to be focused onranium, the contents of the Berlin deposit

have transformed the company into a multi-ommodity green-energy explorer. With a

historic resource of 38 million Ib of uranium,Berlin contains a suite of other green-energylements that are highly attractive in this daynd age. The flagship property is the B erlinreen element project in Colombia. What I

mean by 'green element' is that in additiono uranium, the Berlin deposit contains va-adium, whose principal growth area is inatteries for energy storage, phosphate forgricultural fertilizer, and rare earths, whichre used in various high-tech industries withpplications in renewable energy. Our re-ently announced metallurgical results showhat we can achieve excellent recoveries ofhis suite of commodities from the ore. Theranium, vanadium and phosphate account

or about two-thirds of the in-situ value ofhe B erlin rock, while the rare earths con trib-te another 20%. We have defined an initialranium resource of 21 million Ib to date,

but believe there is potential for 70 million to0 million Ib of uranium on the entire prop-rty so far we have only drilled 3 km of a

10 km mineralized trend , said Dr. RichardSpencer, president and CEO.

Admittedly, the biggest challenge facinghe Berlin project is that it is a multi-com-

modity deposit. Dr. Spencer said, The big

uestion with the Berlin project is that whenou have a big suite of commodities, inves-ors tend to get cautious. Risk exists in termsf the metallurgy; will we be able to extract

hese elements? As of a couple of we eks ago,we received preliminary results from SGS inAustralia; they were very encouraging. Theesults showed that it was possible to extracthe uranium, vanadium, phosphate, and rarearths. With m omen tum on his side, Dr.

Spencer believes that 2 01 2 has the poten tialo be a monumental year for the company.With our rapid resource growth in the pastear from 7 million Ib to nearing 50 millionb of uranium, not to mention resources alson phosphate vanadium and rare earths

Richard Spencer, president and CEO, U308.

a breakout year for U3O8, with a growthtrajectory to 70 million to 80 million Ib of

uranium and two scoping studies on the go.

Is 2012 the Year UraniumRecovers?As any investor, or any news-watching mem-ber of the public, is aware, 2011 was adetrimental year for uranium thanks to theFukushima disaster in Japan. Before theearthquake and tsunami in March 2 0 1 1 , theprice of uranium was approaching $75/lb;after Fukushima, prices bottomed at $50/lband finished the year at $52. Share pricesof uranium companies followed suit and ura-

nium projects were shelved almost acrossthe board, with many analysts ponderingwhen and how the players would recover.The answer may come sooner than expect-ed , according to Pinetree Capital's CorporateSpokesperson, Marshall Auerback. Due toincredible population growth, there are moreand more people who will consume electric-ity and there is no one conventional sourceto satisfy this growth. There will continue tobe nuclear power plants built with improvedsafety measures. Uranium offers much morecompelling value right now than almost anyother area in the energy sector. In addition ,the abundance of uranium, as well as itslongevity technologies exist which can ex-tend its use 60 fold make it an ideal formof energy for the future.

LithiumLithium has grown in importance over theyears. Much like rare earths, lithium is a fun-damental component in many of the high-tech green energy products of this era, aswell as in ba tteries. W hile the applications oflithium appear to be growing on a yearly ba-sis, the general public's understanding of the

l t d it f d t l ti t b

The Uiardum Discovery Company

^ U S Q S R

RAPIDLY GROWINGURANIUM RESOURCES

GREEN METALSIN SOUTH AMERICA

Large uranium,vanadium, phosphate

deposit emerging

in Colombia

Plus rare earths & other metals

Excellent metal recoveries

Growing towards 70 to 80 MLBuranium

Scoping study in 2012

Also NI 43-101 UraniumResources in Guyana &

Argentina

www.u3o8corp.com


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TORONTO - WORLO S M INING CAPITAL

derstanding this in terms of mining. Further-more, another idiosyncrasy of lithium is thatits global production is currently undertakenby four companies. In terms of the lithiumindustry, there are more than 100 batteryproducers and only four lithium producers.

However, Dr. Waldo Perez, presidentand CEO of Lithium Americas, remains un-deterred by this challenge. His company iscurrently developing its principal property,Cauchari-Olaroz, with the goal of it becom-ing the world's largest and lowest-cost lithi-um operation.

Describing the core strengths of the com-pany's asset. Dr. Perez said, The property isa brine project where we extract hyper-salinewater (brine) that contains metal dissolvedin it. The liquid looks like drinking waterbut it is 20% denser than water. The areahosts 5.3 million mt of lithium carbonate asmeasured and indicated and 2.7 million mtlithium carbonate as inferred; this is only onethird o fth e overall property package. The re-source is large and if the project is mined for40 years at 40,000 mt/y making it thebiggest lithium mine in the world today there would s till be 50 % of the resource stillin the ground. The resource has a lot of blue-sky promise; it is already around third-largestlithium brine resource in the world and it hasthe potential to grow.

While entering a market dominated byfour players should be a challenge for anyaspiring company. Dr. Perez is confidentthat Lithium Americas can achieve this goal. Lithium comes from tw o sources; 30 %comes from hard rock and 70% from brines.

Hard rock production cannot compete withlithium from brines due to the higher op-erational costs. Other brine producers haveoperational costs that are higher than ours,so we will have an advantage. The secret tosuccess in mining is to control large resourcewith low operational costs. The lithium car-bonate market is growing and demand willstay strong in the years to come. We will beable to build the mine and we will be com-petitive because of the size of our resourceand our costs. Achieving this goal wi ll re-quire that Lithium Americas clear a numberof technical and financial obstacles. Thereare a lot of lithium projects currently beingpromoted, but very few will go into produc-tion because there are many issues that needto be taken into account, such as brine chem-istry. The exploration effort required to devel-op projects is huge and companies need tobe capitalized to invest money. Companiesneed expertise. Fortunately, we are the onlyjunior lithium company that has its own en-gineering staff. We were lucky because someof the larger producers in the world iet their

LITHIUMAMERICASCORP.

Lithium Am ericas is developing one of the world sLargest and Lowest Cost l i thium operations.

Advanced Stage with FavourableI'roject KconomicsTwo Strategic Investors withOfF-Take Arrangements:

Mitsubishi Corporation and MagnaInternational

ll d d b l

LITHIUMAMERICASrSX: LAC OTCQX : LIIMAIM ike Cosic

rporate Development

Waldo Perez, president and CEO ot LithiumAmericas.

staff go and we now have a full-time LAmericas team who are working at CauOlaroz. The company was built to buimine, said Dr. Perez. With regards to tnancial challenges facing Lithium AmeDr. Perez believes that flawed perceand a lack of knowledge is the main cu People have to start getting used to kinds of projects. Lithium projects needdiscovered and developed. Investors shnot be afraid of trusting companies thamaking an effort to make new discovLithium is not a well-understood commbut this wili change in time and peoplstart to invest more aggressively.

VanadiumIn addition to their Ontario based mond Reef project, Sparton Resourcecurrently working on a world-class dium concession, the Jiangxi projecChina. We are in the process of seekistrategic partner to finance this. The ect is made up of a large series of depoon many of which we have done advadrilling, exploration and metallurgicaling. Currentiy the global vanadium mis very strong, particularly in Asia whhas emerged as a major commodity fosteel industry. China, for example, iable to produce enough vanadium to sadomestic demand. Consequently, it ima third of its required vanadium. Witcurrent project, we will be operating China in hopes of satisfying some of thmestic dem and , said Lee Barker, presand CEO of Sparton Resources.

While Barker sees immense potentthis project, his biggest challenge remthat vanadium is a commodity that is gly misunde rstood. The vast majority vestors are not aware of the importanthis commodity, despite the fact that it essential element in almost every new


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