The Surge in Euro Battery Plants Begins: ASX Stock in the Box Seat for Lithium Supply
With demand for lithium rising in Europe, but a dearth of local supply, one smart ASX lithium explorer has set up shop there in order to exploit growing local demand.
This very tightly held ASX listed company, currently with only 156 million shares tradeable, aims to do this through a wholly owned project in the very safe and stable jurisdiction of Austria.
A very important facet of this play is the company’s geographic positioning, which gives it ready access to lithium hungry manufacturing giants – its project is relatively close to planned lithium ion battery plants in Hungary, Poland, Germany and the UK. Europe is the second largest consumer of lithium behind China, consuming 24% of the world’s supply, and this company is well positioned to capture a significant market share.
Currently the EU has no internal lithium supply, so if a company could fast track the development of a local lithium project, it would be in the box seat to take a slice of the European lithium pie.
This ASX company already has a JORC compliant inferred resource of 3,700,000 tonnes at 1.5%Li2O (55,000 tonnes contained lithium) and history is on its side with 17,000 metres of drilling previously completed.
It has just raised $6M, begun aggressive exploration and is currently undertaking twin hole drilling and underground channel sampling, which will be completed over the coming weeks, providing an immediate catalyst for this stock.
In fact the company is on track to upgrade a JORC Code 2012 compliant measured and indicated resource by the end of October.
However, it is still an early stage play and a cautious approach to any investment decision should be considered and professional financial advice sought.
€11M has already been spent to date on this project which includes exploration, mine development and a PFS. The previous work will enable the company to examine ways to fast track the development phase of the project.
The company has been granted mining leases over 11 mining areas by the Austrian Mining Authority and will soon undertake a Pre-Feasibility Study, with planned production from its lithium spodumene project anticipated in 2019/20.
That’s not a long time in the grand scheme of things, and commercial lithium consumers, and indeed investors looking at supply demand mechanics, would do well to keep a keen eye on this company and its local lithium project.
Introducing…
European Lithium Limited
ASX: EUR
DLC Price at posting:
0.6¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
