Overview
Loads can change in two years — simply have a look at Brazil.
Greatest described as a bit participant within the lithium area solely two years in the past, the nation has since grow to be one of many premier locations for lithium exploration and improvement. It began with the runaway success of Sigma Lithium (NASDAQ:SGML, TSXV:SGML). Since then, a number of high-profile mining firms have established themselves within the nation.
This progress is unlikely to cease anytime quickly, notably in gentle of latest investments into Brazil’s battery manufacturing sector by firms together with BorgWarner and Inventus Energy. Inside the subsequent a number of years, Brazil may grow to be a significant world provider. That is excellent news for the lithium market, as we’re quickly approaching the purpose at which demand will tremendously outstrip provide.
Oceana Lithium (ASX:OCN) is well-positioned to get us previous that time — and to faucet into Brazil’s fast-growing lithium mining trade. An early-stage exploration firm with important alternative for discovery throughout its three lithium tasks, Oceana’s flagship Solonópole mission shows appreciable promise. The corporate additionally maintains extremely potential tasks in each Australia and Brazil.
Oceana’s acquisitions have been no accident. The corporate’s well-informed exploration technique stems from veteran geologists and mining professionals with many years of expertise between them. It is already recognized a number of exploration targets throughout all three tasks, all of that are extremely potential and recognized to include lithium.
Situated three hours by sealed street from the foremost port of Fortaleza, Oceana’s Solonópole mission consists of eight permits masking 114 sq. kilometers of extremely potential floor. Detailed area mapping by Oceana’s Brazilian subsidiary Ceara Litio has recognized a big mineralized pegmatite hall throughout the firm’s declare. The permits additionally cowl a number of historic artisanal mining websites beforehand tapped for lithium, tantalum, niobium and tin.
Highlights:
- A Historic Artisanal Hotbed: Oceana has recognized greater than twenty small-scale artisanal mines throughout area exploration. Mining at these websites solely reached depths of a most of 10 meters as a result of have to blast laborious rock materials.
- Mineralisation: Oceana has a physique of knowledge that implies high-grade mineralization at Solonópole, together with:
- A regional geological evaluation accomplished in 2012 by the federal government Geological Survey DNPN confirmed spodumene, lepidolite, and amblygonite as the primary lithium-containing minerals.
- A regional reconnaissance program accomplished by a earlier explorer which collected 246 seize samples in 2016 and 2017 containing:
- Lithium oxide (Li2O): 9 %.
- Tantalum (Ta): 1 %.
- Niobium (Nb): 1 %.
- Tin (Sn): 1,000 ppm.
- Beryllium (Be): 2.5 %.
- First-pass soil geochemistry outcomes highlighting the presence of residual soil anomalies.
- An Superb Location: Solonópole is located in considered one of Brazil’s two historic lithium mining areas, giving Oceana entry to skilled labour and in depth pre-existing infrastructure. The mission can be well-suited for exploration actions, as it’s arid and sparsely-populated farmland.
- Skilled In-country Group: Oceana has invested closely in growing an in-house exploration workforce headed by skilled resident geologist Renato Braz Sue and a robust company and authorized administration workforce primarily based in Belo Horizonte headed by Cintia Maia and Carolina Carvalho who’re each fluent in English.
- Exploration Work: Giant-scale infill soil sampling program was carried out in March 2023 gathering 5,500 soil samples, and first cross 2,000-metre RC drilling program throughout precedence targets was accomplished in August 2023. Part 1 RC drilling marketing campaign recognized new lithium goal zones. Final 9 RC drill gap assay outcomes from shallow scout drilling marketing campaign confirmed new lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatite targets for deeper drilling in un-weathered zones at Tin Mine, Zilcar II and Rolados.
Map displaying accomplished RC scout drill holes at Bom Jesus de Baixo Prospect
Napperby Lithium Undertaking
A big-scale lithium mission located in Australia’s Northern Territory, Napperby covers 1,160 sq. kilometers. The 100% owned mission can be situated throughout the Northern Arunta pegmatite province, anticipated to quickly grow to be a hotbed of mining and exploration. It shows comparable geology to the Pine Creek pegmatite province, which is itself the positioning of the Finniss Undertaking, owned by Core Lithium (ASX:CXO).
Early-stage fieldwork at Napperby is ongoing.
Highlights:
- A Prime Location: Napperby is accessible by way of each the Stuart Freeway and Tanami Freeway. It is also near Central Australian Railway with entry to the port metropolis of Darwin. Rio Tinto Assets (ASX:RIO) additionally owns a big software instantly to the south of Napperby.
- Confirmed Pegmatites: Historic exploration of the area recognized a number of pegmatite dykes with each tin and tantalum mineral incidence. Moreover, a 2005 evaluation by the Northern Territory Geological Survey confirmed these as LCT pegmatites.
- Oceana has accomplished a hyperspectral survey to accumulate high-quality information over the mission space.
- Soil geochemical program accomplished reveals a number of massive linear lithium anomalies, a few of that are on the strike extension of pegmatite outcrop.
- Important Mineral Potential: Napperby has the potential to host a number of different uncommon and beneficial sources alongside lithium, together with uncommon earth components, tantalum and uranium.
Administration Group
Caue Araujo – Chief Government Officer
Caue Araujo is a professional Australian-Brazilian geologist and an skilled mining trade skilled. Following his early coaching with Vale in Brazil, his subsequent roles have included common supervisor of SRK Consulting Brazil, regional director of funding and enterprise planning at Hatch for Australia and Asia, and extra lately, world common supervisor – mine finance with mining trade advisory group Palaris Australia. He has a robust aptitude for the technical and financial analysis of mineral useful resource tasks, having been concerned within the improvement of quite a few tasks throughout his profession working with finance suppliers and fairness traders together with rising lithium miners and mine gate focus producers.
Caue is a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy and the Australian Institute of Firm Administrators. He has an MBA (mission administration, enterprise and finance) from Ibmec College, Brazil. Via his various expertise, Caue has refined his talents to steer and handle multi-disciplinary groups. He’s properly acquainted with key chemical firms, battery producers and EV producers within the provide chain and their necessities to safe environmentally accountable long-term sources of lithium provide.
James Abson – Senior Exploration Supervisor
James Abson is a geologist with over 28 years of expertise in multi-commodity mining and mineral exploration and has held varied positions from public firm vice-president of exploration to CEO. Abson has been concerned within the exploration and technical and monetary evaluation of assorted lithium pegmatite tasks globally, together with the Arcadia lithium mission in Zimbabwe (later offered in April 2022 to Chinese language pursuits for an underlying worth in extra of $530 million). His most up-to-date place was chief geologist and exploration supervisor for Bikita Minerals’ lithium mine in Zimbabwe, the place his major accountability was hard-rock useful resource exploration (spodumene, lepidolite, petalite, pollucite and tantalum) and in-pit reserve enlargement.
Abson offers technical and strategic enter to the corporate’s board of administrators and technical oversight and management to the exploration workforce to determine and information exploration focusing on, program execution, mission improvement technique and analysis and evaluation of latest mission alternatives.
Renato Braz Sue – Exploration Supervisor, Brazil
Renato Braz Sue is a veteran geologist with over 25 years of exploration and mission improvement expertise in his native Brazil and internationally, having labored in quite a few terranes and commodities together with LCT minerals, copper-lead-zinc in VMS-style environments, gold, nickel, quartz and manganese. His expertise consists of planning and execution of exploration applications from early to superior stage and mine enlargement tasks and offering technical management for mission feasibility research and analysis.
Braz Sue has labored in senior roles in varied states in Brazil for junior, mid-tier and main nationwide and worldwide associate firms together with Yamana Gold, AngloGold Ashanti, Horizonte Minerals, CVRD/Phelps Dodge, Xstrata/Jaguar Mining, Eldorado Gold Corp and Cougar, Brazil. He brings to the Firm deep native information and established relationships with skilled service suppliers in addition to native landowners.
Uwe Naeher – Exploration Supervisor, Canada
Uwe Naeher has over 30 years’ expertise in a variety of terrains and deposit sorts in all elements of exploration. He’s an skilled in granite-hosted ore deposits and mineralization in pegmatites, having labored for the previous 15 years within the African Nice Lakes area within the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi.
Jerome (Gino) Vitale – Non-executive Chairman
Jerome Vitale is a company govt and public firm director with over 30 years expertise in operational, funding banking and advisory roles within the mining and mineral useful resource sector each in Australia and Internationally.
Vitale is a chartered accountant, a senior fellow and former vice-president of Monetary Companies Institute of Australia (FINSIA) and member of the Australian Institute of Firm Administrators. Through the mid-2000’s he was invited onto the ASX Company Governance Evaluation Committee and has a sensible perspective on greatest apply governance compliance for small to mid-cap firms.
Dr. Qingtao Zeng – Non-executive Director
Physician Qingtao Zeng has been extensively concerned within the lithium exploration and improvement sector and is well-connected with potential off-take companions having acted as middleman for the provision or buy of spodumene focus for a lot of producers. He has been engaged as a consulting geologist in a variety of geological and industrial environments.
Dr. Zeng accomplished a PhD in geology on the Centre of Exploration Concentrating on (CET) of College of Western Australia in 2013. He has printed a number of tutorial papers on construction management orogenic gold techniques in numerous geological scales, and is a member of AUSIMM and Society of Financial Geologists (SEG). He’s at present Managing Director of Australasian Metals Ltd, and a non-executive Director of Kodal Minerals plc, MetalsTech Ltd and Winsome Assets Ltd.
Simon Mottram – Non-executive Director
A resident of Brazil, Simon Mottram is a geologist with 28 years’ expertise predominantly in base and valuable metals. Mottram has held each govt and senior administration positions with a number of profitable mining firms in varied international locations. He has progressed a number of discoveries by way of to industrial manufacturing and has been chargeable for a number of important exploration successes.
Mottram is at present president of TSX-listed nickel and PGM explorer Bravo Mining Corp and beforehand an govt director of Avanco Assets, bought on market by mid-tier Australian copper producer OZ Minerals for $440 million in 2018, and subsequently acquired by BHP. Mottram is an Australian and British nationwide and a everlasting resident of Brazil, the place he has lived for almost all of the final 12 years and is fluent in Portuguese. He has beforehand acted as each CP or QP for varied ASX and TSX listed firms, is a fellow of the AusIMM, and a graduate of Melbourne RMIT College.
Dan Smith – Firm Secretary
Dan Smith has greater than 15 years’ expertise in monetary markets, together with 10 years expertise with ASX Itemizing Guidelines compliance and company governance.
Smith is a fellow member of the Governance Institute of Australia and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Worldwide Relations from Curtin College. He acts as firm secretary for quite a few ASX, AIM and NSX-listed firms and is non-executive chairman of uncommon earths explorer DY6 Metals Ltd (ASX: DY6).
Cintia Maia – Firm Administrator, Brazil
Cintia Maia is supervisor, company and director of the corporate’s Brazilian working subsidiary, Ceará Litio Mineração Ltda. She is an skilled company supervisor and administrator and a professional accountant with over 20 years’ expertise.
Maia is aware of reporting necessities for Australian public firms, having beforehand labored as CFO for GRD Minproc, AMEC Canada and a lot of different mining and industrial firms. She brings a wealth of sensible expertise to her position because the Firm’s senior company officer in Brazil.
Carolina Carvalho – Supervisor Company Affairs, Brazil
Carolina Carvalho is an skilled company lawyer, having spent greater than 15 years working with medium and huge multinationals working in Brazil. She has labored in mergers and acquisitions, tax planning and strategic enterprise improvement throughout a lot of industries together with mining.
