This New Technology to Change Mining Value Perceptions

Cobre Montana has the potential to shake up perceptions about ongoing lithium shortages. The company is developing technologies that will do something no one had previously assumed possible, namely, extract lithium from mica economically. With abundant supplies of rock available around the world, expectations about potential shortages could be turned on their head. The company’s initial price re-rating in mid-April came after it announced that it had produced battery-grade lithium carbonate from a sample of ore in the Czech Republic (ASX 16 April). Last week, the company announced a further technical breakthrough using ore sourced in WA (ASX 20 May). The market will become progressively less sensitive to laboratory experiments as the technical potential sinks in but the company can quickly move to production even with ore that would have been discarded as waste. This is all good news for Cobre Montana but bad news for market analysts forecasting a continuation of high profit margins resulting from shortages of lithium.